Hottinger Fraud - Do not get to trusting

No comment needed - but any potential investor should read this and learn from the mistakes that the defrauded investors made.

Ex Hottinger Private Banker - what happened to customer's money

HSBC wants more information from you

Big Banks are turning quickly into Big Brother! Arbitrary punishments are meted out from politicized regulators and greedy jurisdictions (led by the USA where judicial positions are used by ambitious individuals to promote their personal - often political - career, then to switch into highly-paid jobs with the firms they regulated). The cause of misdeeds are in the meantime not addressed - fraud, illegal activities (often again activities that are MADE illegal by legislative fiat, e.g. prostitution, poor or oppressive tax laws, anti-tobacco campaigns, poorly-thought out subsidies or tariffs, anti-drug fanaticism).
The end-effect will be that more and more people will bypass traditional banks, payment systems, possibly reduced their economic activity, esp in the better-earning strata of the population, thus making economies less efficient and more stagnant. All this by administrative fiat without any democratic legitimacy!
Big Banks are turning into Big Brother!

Anti-Money Laudering measures bark up the wrong tree

Prevention, detection and prosecution of money laundering has become big business during the past 20-30 years. And it will keep on growing and feed an ever-expanding army of regulators, compliance officers and assorted consultants. By definition the term money-laundering can be applied to nearly all business transactions and it taints everyone - even innocent parties - that is involved in commerce. For who can with 100 percent certainty say that someone he transacts with is not in some way associated with a proscribed activity? As re-iterated on this site for a few times money-laundering legislation is only a get-out for poor legislation and poor government. If the crime (and quite a few of the proscribed activities do not rank as crime in everyone's eyes) would have been prevented, detected or prosecuted, or even better, bad laws would not have been enacted, the need for anti-money laundering would vanish. But it suits today's political class to create a climate of all-pervasive supervision and fear among the citizens they are supposed to serve.

Slippery Slope to expropriation?

Reports that authorities in certain countries have begun to limit or control the purchase and sale of gold indicate that the political kleptocracies ruling in most countries will stop at nothing to keep their wasteful spending policies going. As always, the lame excuse of combatting money laundering provides a convenient fig leaf - when the whole world knows that ill-advised government policies are the real cause of most - if not all - major crimes.

Kafka alive and well in US Government

The absurd consequences of the obsession with fighting symptoms rather than causes and increasing the reach of government and civil servants at all costs is demonstrated by news (Wall Street Journal, 20 Nov 2010) that major US banks are intimidated enough to refuse to conduct business with a large number of foreign embassies in the USA. In countries such as the UK opening a bank account is a major burden for consumers and achieves no demonstrable benefit in terms of fighting crime or terrorism. The costs of complying with regulations that become more complicated by the day is immense, not only in direct costs related to the governmental enforcement agencies but also in terms of additional staffing in financial service firms.

Perspective on Banking Secrecy

During the recent past politicians and lobbies of all persuasions seen to have found a new 'Enemy Number One' - Banking Secrecy and linked to this Tax Havens large and small.
Politicians and their paid servants the regulators have failed miserably to prepare for the current global financial crisis. Despite the fact that institutions like the Bank of International Settlements has spent roughly 10 years and produced a report of 1000 pages the Bale 2 rules did nothing to prevent the debacle that has afflicted major banks around the world.
So it appears to be nothing more than a desperate search for scapegoats when politicians attack banking secrecy and tax havens. They are not the cause of the current crisis!
Not so long ago there was a time when anyone could walk into a Bank in Austria and open a bank account without presenting any form of documentation. No one asked what their name or address was. You paid in your money and you received a bearer passbook that was the only document you needed to claim back your money. In his teenage years the author even opened a number of passbooks on the same day. That way he pocketed a small amount of money that the banks put into new passbooks as a reward for opening the account.
Was crime any higher as a consequence of lax banking regulation? Was corruption rampant? Not at all. Since the (US inspired) crusade against banking secrecy gathered speed both crime and corruption have - if anything - increased. The world certainly does not seem to be a safer place.
Ironically, much crime and corruption can be traced back to ill-conceived legislation: the war on drugs, arbitrary taxes (tobacco, alcohol), questionable regulations and subsidies (agriculture, trade tariffs), limits on prostitution. All these laws and regulations may be well-intentioned but they provide a fertile field for criminal activity and usually are counterproductive as well as costly to the taxpayer and citizen (who most of the time get no say on respective laws.
If countries want to close down tax loopholes they can avail themselves of a solution that is easy to administer and leaves the precious privacy of all citizens untouched: Legislators can decide to impose taxes at source. If politicians are really only interested in reducing the amount of tax that in unpaid this solution should be suffice. Anything more intrusive indicates that the authorities are really interested in invading the private sphere of the individual and increase the control that the state already has over the citizen's lives.