Swiss Bank MBaer Gets Shut Down Over Alleged Sanction Breach

(Bloomberg) — Swiss authorities revoked the license of MBaer Merchant Bank AG over evidence it helped clients evade sanctions, saying it had been a risk to the country and its financial system.

The announcement from financial regulator Finma comes a day after the US proposed cutting off MBaer from its financial system because of alleged links to Iran and Russia. The Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said that MBaer has been working with customers that engage in money laundering and that executives and employees were likely complicit in in some activities.

The revelations are a blow for Switzerland’s financial center, which has been trying to polish its image since the end of the country’s banking secrecy laws over a decade ago. Swiss banks paid billions of US dollars in fines to the US for helping wealthy individuals hide their assets from tax authorities.

“The case is extremely serious,” Finma said in a statement Friday. “Through its conduct and inadequate organization,” MBaer “has exposed itself and the Swiss financial center to disproportionately high risks.”

The regulator said it found “systematic shortcomings” in MBaer’s compliance with rules. The bank “does not have an adequate structure in place for combating money laundering” and so enabled clients to circumvent official asset freezes. It said its liquidation order against MBaer is now effective after the bank dropped an appeal.

MBaer was fighting Finma’s decision in court but decided to give up after the threat of US sanctions Thursday, a representative for the bank said in a statement. It confirmed it’s “in liquidation,” with Annett Viehweg continuing to serve as chief executive, supervised by the liquidators.

The bank said has sufficient assets to satisfy all clients and creditors in full, though noted it can only make payments of as much as 100,000 Swiss francs per client given the US intervention and the revocation of its license.

High-Risk Clients

MBaer was founded in 2018 and is based in Zurich. It was set up by Michael Baer, the great-grandson of Julius Baer, who founded the Swiss bank of the same name more than a hundred years ago.

At the end of 2025, the bank held client assets totaling 4.9 billion Swiss francs ($6.4 billion), maintained almost 700 client relationships and had over 60 employees, according to Finma, which said it had been investigating MBaer since 2024. The supervisor found that 80% of the business relationships carried increased risks. Most recently, 98% of the assets received came from high-risk clients.

The regulator also said that it opened proceedings against four individuals who may have been responsible for the matters under investigation.

Along with violating Russia-related sanctions and links to Iranian terrorist organizations, MBaer played a “key role” in handling funds tied to corruption schemes of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company since 2020, according to the document detailing the findings by FinCEN.

It’s the first time a Swiss bank has shown up in a list of companies and countries designated by FinCEN as being of “primary money laundering concern,” according to a Bloomberg review of the agency’s website.

The move also comes during a time of heightened tensions between Switzerland and the US over tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

–With assistance from Paula Doenecke.

(Updates with comment from bank starting in sixth paragraph)

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