Those days are gone. The banks' compliance and legal functions are anal beyond belief in terms of who they take on as clients.
This is very true. The first line filters include:
- Are you a US citizen or have you ever held a green card? If so and your not a resident, the doorman will helpfully escort you off the premises! If resident you get a salary account (current account), a deposit account and a debit card (usually no credit cards).
- If not an American and not resident you will need to have between say $3m and $7m to invest (not deposit), if not then, the doorman will happily escort you off the premises
- The only people who can expect to get full banking facilities are: resident Swiss citizens, C permit holders (permanent residents) and resident EU/EEA citizens. All others including non resident Swiss citizens can expect to receive very limited facilities.
Assuming you make it past the the doorman, the next thing is vetting, which normally includes:
- Identity check
- Credit check
- Debtors court check
- Employer check, if resident
- Security background check
- Political background check
This is usually repeated every 18 months or so
They also subscribe to the various newspaper clippings and services and have various software tools are then used to match that to account holders. So if you appeared at the district court in Ballinrobe last month and it was reported in the Mayo News, you can bet the client adviser responsible for your account will know about it within the month.
Some of them even have an application that flags Irish chancers who try to use various version of Irish/English names and addresses ;-)
They also have some top quality wealth managers (e.g. Credit Suisse, UBS, and Julius Baer).
While both UBS and CS are very big, the are unlikely to be on any Swiss citizens list of top managers
. More likely candidates would be:
- Vontobel
- Pictet
- Sarisin
It is also worth pointing out that our bank guarantee works differently, it is not underwritten by the federal government, it is covered by the other Swiss banks and insurance companies and is capped at CHF 9b. Experience suggests that you can expect to receive back about 30k rather than the 100k expected else where.
Also the 'too big to fail' banks: CS and UBS, will be legally split between international and domestic by the end of next year (I think) with the intention that the international divisions will not be bailed out in future should such a situation arise. So the safe Swiss bank account for foreigners will be a thing of the past.