The reason that some people with sizeable assets prefer to put their money in a private, Swiss bank account, is because tax evasion is not a criminal offence in Switzerland and the banks are not required to report on it. While the high street banks that hold the current accounts of Mr. and Mrs. J Public have had heavy financial losses, those banks that manage largely private accounts, have made a consistent profit, rising by more than a hundred percent each year.

Not all private banks have the same, somewhat risky practices as those employed by the Swiss banks; Rothschild’s for example, one of the earliest private banks runs on a different business model and would not consider helping a client to evade taxes.

 

The original private banks were, like Rothschild’s, respectable, family run businesses that had evolved into large corporations over the years. The joint assets that are carried by the non-traditional private banks are estimated at being in excess of a trillion dollars.