Explainer: Are Swiss banks still home to dirty money, or have they cleaned house?

Article 47 of the Swiss Banking Act makes it a federal crime to divulge details on bank accounts even to Swiss authorities. Illustration: Kai Reusser, SWI swissinfo.ch

Owning a Swiss bank account still evokes thoughts in many countries of dodgy dealings and hidden wealth. That’s even after decades of reform.

It’s long been a crime in Switzerland to disclose information about money held in the nation’s banks. Not just balances, transactions and account numbers but even whether an individual is a customer. Pressure from foreign governments and some local groups concerned about crime, corruption and terrorism has prompted reforms.

Yet many in and out of the country say these haven’t gone far enough. Others, including the finance industry, some politicians and voters, say perceptions abroad are out of date and Switzerland has already cleaned up its act.

How secretive are Swiss banks these days? 

Article 47 of the Swiss Banking ActExternal link, dating from 1934, makes it a federal crime to divulge details on bank accounts even to Swiss authorities. Only if a client is already suspected of crimes such as tax evasion or money laundering must a bank report to officials.

Foreign states may ask Switzerland for help in such cases, as well as areas including corruption and terrorism, though the process can be slow and legally cumbersome.

Punishment for leakers, on the other hand, is severe. Intentionally or negligently breaking the rules can mean five years in prison or a fine of CHF250,000 ($320,000).

In one example from 2008, Hervé Falciani, a computer systems analyst at HSBC’s Swiss branch, took confidential data on over 106,000 clients from more than 200 countries.

While prosecutors accused him of attempting to sell the information for profit, Falciani said he wanted to expose widespread tax evasion. His leak revealed how HSBC’s Swiss branch had helped wealthy clients hide millions of dollars in assets and evade taxes from their nations’ public revenue authorities, leading to multiple arrests and fines.

Regardless, in 2015 a Swiss court sentenced Falciani in absentia to five years in prison, though he remains free, as extradition requests were denied by both France and Spain.

The same year, Switzerland doubled down, amending Article 47 to expand criminal liability for leaks in a way that media groupsExternal link warned could hit whistleblowers and journalists even if the information was true and its release was in the public interest.

Press freedom organisations warn that this could place journalists and whistleblowers under criminal prosecution, even if the information is true and in the public interest:

In 2025, the offices and home of Swiss journalist Lukas Hässig were raided almost a decade after a report he wrote on former Raiffeisen Bank chief Pierin Vincenz and an adviser. Zurich’s High Court wants to see the journalist charged for allegedly using confidential information and violating bank secrecy laws, according to an article written by HässigExternal link, who didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Swissinfo.

“We urge the Swiss authorities to drop the charges against Lukas Hässig and to return the work equipment confiscated from him,” said Ricardo GutiérrezExternal link, general secretary of the European Federation of Journalists. “We also call for a reform of banking secrecy, so that it complies with European legal standards on freedom of expression and freedom of the press and is up to the standards of a democracy like Switzerland.”

What has Switzerland done to become more transparent?

Following the 2008 financial crisis and economic slump, Western nations pressured tax havens like Switzerland to dismantle banking secrecy as the salience of evasion grew and governments struggled with declining revenues and rising spending costs.

UBSExternal link, the country’s largest bank, was forced to pay $780 million (CHF614 million) in fines and hand over the identities and account information of about 4,450 clientsExternal link to the United States after admitting to helping hide customers’ assets from tax officials. This was the first time a Swiss bank had handed over such information to a foreign country on such a large scale.

The Alpine nation also became one of the primary targets of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) passed by the US in 2010. FATCA requires foreign financial institutions to report information on accounts held by US citizens to the country’s Internal Revenue Service. Switzerland formally signed up to the regulationsExternal link in 2014.

The same year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) set a Common Reporting Standard (CRS)External link for automatic exchange of financial information, with Switzerland joining three years later and providing data for the first time in 2018.

The country faced being blacklisted as a non-cooperative financial centre if it refused to agree to the standard, as well as being marginalised in world capital markets and seeing its bilateral tax treaties suspended. While the terms only apply to co-signatories, the CRS ended Switzerland’s principle of not sharing bank information with foreign states.

Banks must report the account information of citizens or tax residents of the more than 120 nations that have an automatic exchange agreement with SwitzerlandExternal link to federal tax officials, who then forward the details to the foreign tax authority.

In 2026, Switzerland also plans to create a register of the owners of assets held through shell companies in a bid to crack down on money laundering, though anti-corruption lobby group Transparency International says the reforms contain major loopholes.

How does Switzerland compare with other countries? 

Even after reforms, the country compares poorly for transparency with most peers.

The Tax Justice Network ranked Switzerland the second-most significant enabler of financial secrecy in its 2025 ranking of 141 nations. Only the US was higher in the UK-based advocacy group’s 2025 Financial Secrecy IndexExternal link, a position that it mostly attributed to the scale of America’s share of the global financial market.

While the Swiss Bankers Association says its members have implemented all international regulations, critics argue reforms haven’t gone far enough. A series of scandals resulting from data leaks to overseas journalists, including the so-called 2021 Pandora Papers and the 2022 Suisse Secrets investigations have added to concerns.

Alliance Sud, a Swiss development organisation, arguesExternal link authorities “continue by every means to defend the local financial centre as a contact point for oligarchs, a hotspot for criminal private banks, and a protected space for shady investment advisers”.

Meanwhile, Swiss residents are still exempt from information exchange requirements set out in the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard signed by Switzerland.

Finance firms and some politicians fear that transparency just makes their wealth management industry less competitive against rivals in Asia or the Middle East. Hong Kong has overtaken Switzerland to become the largest cross-border wealth hub, Boston Consulting Group said in its 2026 Global Wealth Report.

Others say the risk to the country’s image of assisting corruption is too great.

As legislators drafted the new ownership disclosure rules last year, Transparency International warned that there was a risk of introducing significant loopholes, adding that industry lobbyists shouldn’t be allowed to dilute the reforms.

“Switzerland is at an important juncture,” said Maira Martini, head of the group.External link “It must decide whether it will swiftly move ahead with its planned anti-money laundering reform or remain a major global destination for dirty money.”

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Edited by Tony Barrett/vm/ts