[kubb]

You could take your analogy further, and consider why the Swiss banking isn’t so opaque anymore. Hint: people who did really inhuman things used that system to store their profits, and the Swiss society, developed and stable as it is, decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore.

[remus]

> ...decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore.

And of course the external pressure to loosen banking secrecy laws has been huge, particularly from the US e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UBS_tax_evasion_controversies

[embedding-shape]

But ultimately the Swiss decides what Switzerland does, and the population deciding they didn't want that, was the deciding factor. Been pressure on Switzerland about that for a long time, from many countries, and in fact still there is, as many still think they're not doing enough. Not everything in the world happens because of the US :)

[rich_sasha]

The US department requests that all foreign financial institutions share all their US clients details.

Wanna refuse? No problem. Of course you can. You're outside the US jurisdiction.

But every USD transaction you do is subject to, IIRC, 30% tax. Unless the US decides to block it altogether.

[throwwwll]

You are naiive and/or stupid. And/or gaslighting. Most likely the latter since you have to sugarcoat your message with trailing emoji.

UBS tried to hold for as long as they could, and the choice the US given them is "pay a fine (accrues daily) or be cut from world financial system run by dollar".

UBS ultimately paid a 780 million fine. The rest of Swiss banks followed suit immediately.

Many things in the world happen, and most of the dumb bullshit that happens is imposed by US. This naiivete has to stop, the times have changed, and you, you spefically are part of the problem.

[jschveibinz]

Please maintain proper decorum. Ad hominem attacks aren't beneficial to the discussion on HN. Thank you.

[fransje26]

> Hint: people who did really inhuman things used that system to store their profits, and the Swiss society, developed and stable as it is, decided that they don’t want to bear the moral cost of it anymore.

That's a nice re-write of history.

What actually happened is that the US said: cut the crap and leave the opaque banking to us, else...

[fakedang]

Exactly. Post that pressure, the US, specifically Wyoming, is a much better tax haven than any Swiss canton.

[throwwwll]

> Swiss society decided

Nice attempt at whitewashing and gaslighting, but the only entity here that decided that is the fucking US of A.

[beloch]

The Swiss didn't vet their clients. If Vladimir Putin wants to contract a data centre on your soil for the privacy, you can always have regulations that say, "No.".

[AnthonyMouse]

The entire premise of "other countries can trust your companies to protect their privacy" is that you can't. "US reads Dutch emails" is the thing you have to not do.

[dmurray]

You can be strict about who you do business with while still respecting their privacy once they are set up.

The respectable, politically popular country setting this up would simply say yes to the International Criminal Court, but no to Putin.

This doesn't work well as a blacklist of "everyone's allowed unless they turn out to be sanctioned", because some shell company or reseller could register and actually be a front for Russia or whatever other bogeyman. But just serving enormous respectable organisations is a big niche in itself.

[AnthonyMouse]

But now you're proposing something that doesn't solve the problem for the vast majority of people, since nearly everyone is neither the International Criminal Court nor Vladimir Putin.

[dmurray]

It might solve it for the majority of people by compute use, though. Charge $100,000 one time auditing fee to get approved for it. For a Fortune 500 company or EU government agency or a big NGO that's nothing.

[AnthonyMouse]

One-time anything doesn't work for security, not least because if they're trying to betray you they can change whatever they want as soon as your auditors leave the premises.

Notice also that you're only handling the entities large enough to do things in-house to begin with. Meanwhile one of the biggest problems here is industrial espionage, which is to say startups with interesting new technology.

[petre]

If the payments go through SWIFT, the problem is solved if either party is sanctioned.