The new Swiss "hostages" situation

Switzerland’s private banks have banned their top executives from traveling aboard for fearing they will be detained for interrogations. Last year US detented a senior UBS private banker and demanded for their list of American depositors as part of a tax evasion investigation. UBS has agreed to pay $780m (£548m) in fines and turn over some customer names to the US government as part of a landmark settlement in which the Swiss bank admitted it helped thousands of clients evade taxes.

The deferred prosecution agreement settles a long-running criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice into whether UBS helped wealthy US clients hide bank accounts from the Internal Revenue Service.

In the current crisis where many governments are eager to find new $$$, Swiss banks are said to hold an estimated a third of the world’s $11,000bn in clandestine personal wealth.

The restrictions come ahead of next week’s The Group of 20 summit when they will discuss a clampdown on tax havens. Switzerland, under pressure from other countries, has already agreed to ease its bank secrecy laws and accept international standards on tax transparency.