Swiss banks run into trouble in Asia
Regulators’ closure of the Swiss BSI bank’s Asian outpost for failing in its duty to prevent money-laundering has highlighted the risks of hunting wealthy clients farther afield as Swiss banks’ traditional line in hiding money from foreign tax men is choked off. The Swiss banking watchdog FINMA has already opened enforcement proceedings against no fewer than six other unnamed Swiss banks in relation to either the Malaysian fund that tripped up BSI or a separate scandal involving Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer, Petrobras.
The head of Singapore’s central bank accused BSI of the worst case of control lapses and gross misconduct ever seen in the city-state’s financial sector for its dealings with the scandal hit Malaysian government fund 1 Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). In recent years, Swiss banks have paid billions of dollars in fines as global prosecutors, led by the United States, chipped away at the secrecy that for decades enabled the world’s wealthy to keep their cash in Switzerland, out of sight of the tax man.
No comments:
Post a Comment