Are Swiss bank accounts overrated?
They’re certainly not what they used to be. There was a time, as recently as the mid-1990s, when confidential numbered accounts offered a true veil of secrecy. “You didn’t even have to be present” to open an account, says Chitra Staley, chief investment officer at financial-advisory firm Mintz Levin. “You just came up with the cash — about $2 million if you knew someone, $5 million if you didn’t — and signed your name.” Often, the name associated with a numbered account was a mere formality: “Banks didn’t ask for ID,” Staley says. The days of secret numbered accounts ended, however, as pressure mounted to crack down on money laundering by arms smugglers and drug traffickers and to pay money that was being held in dormant Swiss accounts to the families of Holocaust victims. The veil of secrecy has been shredded further with fears of money laundering for terrorists. Nowadays, many private banks require 1 million Swiss francs (about $700,000) to open an account. But you may have to fork
