How does a country go from being the world leader in bank secrecy to a leader in openness and transparency in nine years? And while it’s not a member of the European Union, Switzerland does sit in the middle of Europe, surrounded by EU member nations. Suddenly it was no longer chic for Switzerland to recite its traditional mantra of banking secrecy if it wanted to continue to participate in global finance. Isn’t Switzerland actually cooperating in opening up its bank secrecy laws, and helping other nations enforce their tax laws? On this front, customers enjoyed not only the protection of Swiss banking secrecy, but also the Swiss court system, in which the identities of litigants remain private.

Source: Forbes April 05, 2017 17:15 UTC