Federal Act on Banks and Savings Banks

Article 47 makes it a federal crime to disclose the information or activity of clients banking domestically to foreign entities, third parties, or even Swiss authorities without either a) consent or b) an accepted criminal complaint.

The Federal Act, alongside more generally Swiss culture and the banking industry, has been accused of facilitating systematic tax evasion, money laundering, and the underground economy.

[3] During the early 1900s, an increasingly volatile international climate led multiple European countries to reform their banking industries and taxation programs.

[3] Switzerland sought to capitalize on the global taxation paradigm shift by formally codifying and redoubling their centuries long association with banking secrecy.

[6] This article made it a federal crime to disclose the information or activity of clients banking domestically to foreign entities, third parties, or even Swiss authorities without either a) consent or b) an accepted criminal complaint.

[6] The original framing of the Federal Act contains 56 articles that establish a variety of financial, legal, and economic regulations for any banking institution operating within Switzerland.

[6] Measures to expand or otherwise improve banking secrecy in Switzerland is often met with high levels of public support, usually passing through legislative bodies and commissions with ease and little debate.

[17] International pressure to roll back banking secrecy is met with social and political backlash with many politicians accusing foreign states of hypocrisy (e.g. other off-shore financial centers) and attacking Swiss society.

[17][18] Of the few proposed roll backs, international agreements are significantly watered down, infrequently enforced, and occasionally overridden or caveated by Federal Supreme Court rulings.