Swiss Offshore Banking, Offshore Banking Legislation

Zurich is biggest city in Switzerland and the capital of canton of Zurich. It is regarded as Switzerland’s commercial center, where headquarters of world’s many largest banks are located. Offshore banking constitutes to 70% of country’s economy and most of banking business is concentrated in Zurich.

Swiss offshore banking is extremely popular in the world, since Switzerland has a long record of providing secure, safe and anonymous offshore banking services for decades. Swiss bank secrecy laws have proven to be very strong and highly enforceable that makes Switzerland as one of the major offshore banking centers in the world.

Switzerland’s economy is extremely strong that is ensured by country’s images of world’s leading offshore banking centers. Today assets held by Swiss banks amounts to 1.3 trillion pounds or 3 trillion Swiss Francs. Country’s currency has appreciated in value against world’s major currencies reflecting large capital inflows.

Offshore Banking Legislation

The banking sector is supervised by Federal Banking Commission, which act according to the Banking Law of 1934. Although Banking Law is updated from time to time to ensure that supervisory framework is consistent with the best-known practices, the main principles remain unchanged: Swiss banks are subject to strict reserve requirements and reporting norms.

Offshore banking supervision is crucial to Switzerland to ensure good standing of its financial institutions and the entire banking sector. Swiss authorities are limited in utilizing lender-of-last-resort function due to the volume of deposits in banking institutions. The aim of the supervision is ensuring health and reliability of the banking sector and by all means avoiding banking problems.

Swiss offshore banking does not protect individuals or businesses from illegal practices and does not provide a room for money laundering. In 1998 authorities adopted Money Laundering Law, which describes rules that should govern bank’s activity towards suspicious accounts. Breaking these rules is subject to large fines.

Swiss offshore banking accounts are not only for rich people, government officials or criminals hiding their wealth. Nowadays such accounts are available to a lot of ordinary people willing to reap benefits of legal offshore banking. Swiss accounts provide a good place to keep savings, if you live in a country with unstable business environment and political turmoil. Swiss banks are favored due to the safety, security and confidentiality.

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