Monday, September 17, 2012

Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars Expected To Be Withdrawn From Swiss Banks Amid Tax Evasion Crackdown

Hundreds of billions of francs to leave Swiss banks
* UBS: Own client withdrawals offset by inflows elsewhere
* UBS still sees reason for clients to bank in Switzerland
* UBS investing in Germany, Britain, Italy
ZURICH, Sept 17 (Reuters) - UBS expects Swiss banks to see European clients withdraw "hundreds of billions of francs" as a result of steps to stop foreigners using secret accounts to evade taxes.
Juerg Zeltner, head of UBS wealth management, reiterated an estimate he gave in May that Switzerland's biggest bank could see outflows of 12-30 billion Swiss francs ($12.8-31.9 billion) from total European assets under management of over 300 billion.
"As a consequence of the realignment of the financial centre and the planned withholding tax, we assume that a total of hundreds of billions of francs will flow out of Switzerland," he told the Schweizer Bank magazine in an interview on Monday.
"In the offshore business with European customers, I assume that we will have to live with significant outflows of wealth for quite a long time yet."

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