In recent years Switzerland has come under increased pressure to loosen its bank secrecy protection and allow foreign governments to obtain information on bank accounts held by its tax payers in Switzerland. After timid first steps initiated in 2009 to grant exchange of information in cases where the information is foreseeably relevant for the enforcement of domestic tax laws, under pressure from the OECD, the EU and the USA, Switzerland seems now to be defining a new strategy for its financial centre which may move away from a strict bank secrecy protection to enhanced transparency and even an automatic information exchange with foreign governments. This article discusses the current initiatives of the Swiss Government in its definition of a new strategy.

By René Bösch (Reference: CapLaw-2013-15)

The Federal Department of Finance recently published different proposals with respect to new rules on capital adequacy for Swiss banks, including detailed provisions aimed at mitigating the too-big-to-fail conundrum. The suggested changes strive to raise both the quality and quantity of the regulatory capital base and enhance the risk coverage of the capital framework. Whereas overall the proposed changes are welcomed insofar as they are aimed at implementing the new capital adequacy rules of the international Basel III framework, some amendments are criticizable as they would result in stricter requirements for Swiss banks than required under Basel III for no apparent good cause. In addition, the stricter capital adequacy rules for systemically important banks seem to depart from the final report of the expert commission with respect to a number of important points and, if implemented, may put significant constraints on Switzerland’s two large banks.