Bank secrecy

The bank secrecy indicates, in its meaning first, the obligation which information has the Banque S not to deliver on their customers to thirds. It raises of the Professional secrecy. By extension, the bank secrecy indicates sometimes the mechanisms which allow moral persons or physics to hold banking assets in a more or less anonymous way.

mechanisms of the bank secrecy

The concept of professional secrecy, and thus of bank secrecy, is rather variable according to the countries. The common principle is a legal requirement (under penalty of penal sanction) for the bankers maintain the confidentiality of the information obtained on their customers at the time of the performance of their duties. The differences between the legislations are mainly in the mechanisms of information disclosure (and thus of rupture of the secrecy).

Example of the France

In France, the bank secrecy is a professional secrecy like another (article L. 511-33 of the monetary and financial Code), with an important restriction: certain administrations automatically have access to information which they ask. It is about the tax authorities, of, bank of France, bank charge and the authority customs of the financial markets. Moreover, justice has access to the information concerned with the bank secrecy within the framework of a penal procedure.

As of 1990, France founded laws obliging the banking institutions to announce of their own initiative any suspect transaction (law of July 12th, 1990, become the articles L. 563-1 and L. 562-2 of the monetary and financial Code). The declarations are transmitted to cell TRACFIN (treatment of the information and action against the clandestine financial circuits) created for this purpose.

One can thus say that the bank secrecy in France does not correspond to a strong respect of the private life since the administration has a direct right of access without judicial control with the information held by the banks. The justifications for these limitations are the fight against the tax evasion and that against the Money laundering.

Example of the Swiss

In Switzerland, the bank secrecy is regulated by article 34 of the Federal law on the banks of November 8th, 1934. This article lays down like sanction the imprisonment for six months with more or one fine of 50 ' 000CHFS to more if the violation were made voluntarily.

The exceptions to the secrecy are much rarer than in France. In fact, only justice can obtain the lifting of the bank secrecy within the framework of a penal procedure. The administration does not have right of access with the information held by the banks, except however for the federal Commission of the banks, responsible for the monitoring of the banking system.

It should be noted that tax avoidance, i.e. the fact of not declaring the integrality of its incomes or its assets, is not regarded a crime by the law Suisse, but as an offense. So the continuations for tax avoidance cannot obtain the lifting of the bank secrecy because they do not concern a penal procedure.

The impersonal accounts do not exist any more in Switzerland since 1991 and it is thus theoretically possible to find the owners of an account in the event of lifting of the bank secrecy. However, certain operations can still be realized by a financial intermediary (itself subjected to the professional secrecy) without this one not being supposed to reveal the identity of its customer.

The Swiss bank secrecy into force takes a form close to that currently with the banking law of 1934 which devotes a tradition and extends its field of application the abroads. Two motivations justify this extension the abroads:

  1. Hitler promulgates in the years 1930 a law which returns the detention of capital out of Germany liable to the capital punishment. Several German is carried out to have had accounts in Switzerland.
  2. in 1932, a scandal bursts in France and reveals that 1500 to 2000 personalities (politicians, magistrates, etc) have illegally accounts in Switzerland.
In both cases (and without one being able to bring closer the risks for the people concerned), it is a question of protecting the nationals from a foreign country, but also of maintaining the attractivity of the Swiss money market.

The Swiss bank secrecy thus seems more strict than its French version.

DEBATEs

The bank secrecy was the object of many debates and polemics because some regard it as an obstacle with the continuation of investigation on occult accounts.

According to the currents altermondialists, which do not cease requiring its lifting, the bank secrecy allows the bleaching of the dirty money of the Mafia, the tax evasions and the financing of the Terrorisme.

According to the liberal , the bank secrecy guarantees a fundamental Droit, that of the respect of the Propriété and Private life of the individuals.

Some businesses where the bank secrecy was put at evil

  • the accounts Nazi S in Suisse, which would contain or would have contained war treasures

  • research on the Financement of the organization Al-Qaida

See too

Random links:Cersay | Amélie Plucks | +44 | Island Melon | Barachois (group) | Méson