I've recently been told by two Swiss banks that they will not open security accounts since this summer for US clients, even if they are legal residents of Switzerland and the money to be deposited was earned in Switzerland. Does anyone know why they are taking these policies, and what banks ARE NOT following these policies? It is not fair that I earn money in Switz, pay taxes here, bank here, but am not allowed to participate in investments here!

The story has been in the press so much recently. UBS has agressively
recruited wealthy Americans to hide their money and investments. The
IRS knows about this and have pressured Swiss Banks to turn over
the names of US citizens. Many banks have just decided not to do
business with US citizens.


Anyway with electronic trading, you can access an account
in the US from here. Additionally, the Swiss charge outrageous
fees for little helpful knowledge IMHO. Get yourself an account
with Ameritrade or one of the online guys.

I do not want to transfer money back to the US and take a bath on fees and a poor CHFUSD exchange rate now. Plus I want to use the proceeds in CH , where I live. TD Ameritrade also does not allow trading on foreign exchanges, only US exhanges

Try perhaps one of the Kantonal Banks or a smaller bank.

Thanks, maybe I'll give that a try

Mine isn't (*for the moment, although the policy is under review*), as long as the money is declared to Uncle Sam.

You could open an account with Interactive Brokers - an American company with access to Swiss and European markets. They don't trade all Swiss equities, but trade around 75% of them. Drawback is the account is 100% self service... no telephone orders, little support in general. Your citizenship will not make a difference, except that you will still get a 1099 to IRS.

...or vote here...or...or...or...

Even if you want to be completely above board and declare everything to Uncle Sam, the offshore world has plenty to offer a US citizen, including confidentiality, protection, and more sophisticated products (not necessarily riskier). trouble is, the US doesn't like the confidentiality aspect of offshore jurisdictions more than anything else (including tax evasion, although that nearly always goes hand in hand).

In any case there are lots of options (many non-swiss) that will fulfill your requirements. I'm a financial planner and you can PM me for some information if you like. Best of luck!

A rather obvious question but I'll ask it anyway: are you authorised to practice in Switzerland???

Regards,

Jim.

I suggest you vote for a different government(!)

The US make all these silly rules (to make sure US citizens pay taxes whereever they are in the world - so not so silly - as it means the US government earn money) which end up keeping quite a lot of non US people employed in Swiss banks in Switzerland sorting thru all the guff and rules and their own customers.

SO the Swiss banks want to save money, they fire all the people employed to sort thru the guff and stuff the US government imposes. So they cant abide by the rules because they dont have the (wo)man power. So US citizens cant be their customers.

Quite simple really...

What can you do about it? Open a Depot account in the US? Internet bank?

__________________
11. Knowing deep down that you gave your dreams a fair chance. – Most of the time the only difference between a dream that came true and one that didn’t, is a person who wouldn’t give up and one who did.

yes. And a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute in Britain (the professional body for financial services despite the name)