[rrggrr]

Except - they also serve as a safehaven for wealth created in countries where its very likely to be confiscated by totalitarian and unstable governments. Think Nazi Germany, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and unfortunately, possibly, hopefully unlikely - China.

[dredmorbius]

Most of the wealth "created" in totalitarian states is in fact extracted by kleptocratic rulers. Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, numerous African dictators, Vladimir Putin, current the 3rd richest person in the world.

If you want to create exceptions for financial refugees, that's well and good. But global protection for every drug lord, terrorist, and petty dictator ain't the right way to do it.

[mjn]

Even closer in the neighborhood, most of the Greek kleptocrats have their money in Swiss banks too. Some of them are now being prosecuted, with information that only came to light because an employee of HSBC took some account lists home (in violation of Swiss law). The French police later found these in a raid, and turned them over in part to the Greek police [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if Swiss banks are also handling the money from organized crime in Bulgaria and Romania.

I think eventually, like the US has, the EU will succeed in pressuring Switzerland to cooperate more with European police investigations and turn over this kind of information. Despite not being an EU member, Switzerland is too economically entangled in EU treaties like the common market, to entirely ignore what the EU thinks, at least in cases where the EU actually agrees on what it thinks and is willing to make an issue out of it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagarde_list