The days of high ranking German officers stashing art and bullion proceeds into a numbered accounts are gone, and have been for decades. Modern Swiss banking p

The days of high ranking German officers stashing art and bullion proceeds into a numbered accounts are gone, and have been for decades. Modern Swiss banking privacy is for the DuPont heirs. Their job is to carefully study international tax code, remittance policies of specific countries, volatility of currencies, and a bit of family law within the locales of their clients to minimize divorce losses. Swiss banks exist because they offer a continuity of service. You bank with Julius Baer because your father banked with him. He was at your christening. The overlap between those who crypto-currency user and a private bank client (as anything other than a 'haha, alright let's throw 100k EUR at it and see where it lands' in a speculative fashion) is minimal. This is a token gesture to the US government saying effectively - hey, fine, Homeland Security, go through any record you like, as long as it's not a Swiss national record. If we were unknowingly complicit in a wire transfer from a Saudi oil account to a Yemeni terror cell, by all means, go for it. Simultaneously, those Carnegie steel heirs are still protected because their name might be listed as "Director" few holding AG's but "sorry, no earning assets there. Any retained earnings go directly to the parent company, we'd love to help you out but it's a Lichtenstein AG. You'll Have to speak to their banking administration." (Oh fun fact, Lichtenstein has more registered companies than it does citizens.) This [0] is how an average run-of-the-mill Swiss Bank constructs their protection. Look at how that institution itself is structured -- Private Investment Bank Ltd is a fully licensed Bank in the Bahamas, established in 1982. It is wholly-owned by Banque Cramer & Cie SA, Geneva, Switzerland, which is a subsidiary of Norinvest Holding SA, a company having family origins in the financial as well as in the industrial sector, dating back to 1871." Rest assured, this is just the tip of the iceberg. (That bank isn't particularly reputed for their private banking services.) Think of banking privacy a lot like the security within your home. An average person with a Kwik-key frontdoor can get bump-keyed or pin-raked in well under a minute[1]. This is basically like opening an auxiliary bank account in a confidant's name to protect against divorce asset issues in a low net-worth scenario (a good attorney will be able to bypass something like that trivially, leading you down forfeiture road). You throw in a security key like this fancy schmancy German engineered key[2] that's resistant to standard rake-pick techniques, you've upped the entry barrier (haha ugh bad pun intended) from "common thief" to "a professional has likely targeted specifically your house on the Hamptons for that original Matisse you bought at Sotheby's". The banking equivalent of that German key is consulting with UBS or HSBC's private wealth division. If you come from old money, your family has already established all the right safe guards against shirt-loss in divorce, the right non-profit foundations structured, and proper holding companies located in the right tax domiciles (think: Google and 11% in Ireland) structured on any profits yielded.[see: 4] Sufficient protection for civil suits (i.e., that professional art thief), but your 'lock' won't hold up to the hydraulic battering ram[3] that SWAT uses to break down your door after a ADA goes before a judge alleging you're involved in a terror plot and/or involved in a large drug operation, providing the judge with what seems to be sufficient evidence to sign off on a no-knock warrant. (Though I'd suppose, those battering rams would certainly provide enough 'knock'.) Your HSBC private wealth account might provide you with enough insulation against municipal prosecutors, but certainly not the US DHS at that point. Here's the thing though - at that point, Swiss banks don't want your money. They'll keep the DuPont and Koch fortunes safe from gold-diggers but they don't want darknet money used to purchase guns, child porn, drugs, or anything even remotely connected to terror. Anything involving proceedings at the first-world federal investigator level (IRS grey-suits notwithstanding, those meetings occur with the run-of-the-mill regularity like the clockwork of a good Patek Philippe [sorry, I couldn't resist]) is a severe impedance for business as usual. [0] https://www.banquecramer.ch/dam/jcr:7813a747-9c8c-4101-8091-e2b8900613b1/PIBL_Brochure_A4.pdf https://www.banquecramer.ch/dam/jcr:7813a747-9c8c-4101-8091-... [1] The good lock-pickers won't even leave deformation marks on the unit, since they've basically got their hands calibrated to the point where they can feel when their pick engages on a pin. [2] http://www.theamazingking.com/images/locks/dom-key.jpg http://www.theamazingking.com/images/locks/dom-key.jpg [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_breaching#/media/File:Trgso19.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_breaching#/media/File:Trg... [4] https://www.banquecramer.ch/dam/jcr:7813a747-9c8c-4101-8091-e2b8900613b1/PIBL_Brochure_A4.pdf https://www.banquecramer.ch/dam/jcr:7813a747-9c8c-4101-8091-... Here's how a typical private bank structures the assets of their clients to protect against divorce.