How do people transfer money to their Swiss bank account?
I hear lot’s of rich people or businessmen hold their money in Swiss (offshore) bank accounts. But no one ever mentions how do these people get their money to those bank accounts in the first place.
Obviously they don’t travel there with $100,000 in their pockets, and Credit cards seem unlikely. A bank wire also seems strange as that would beat the purpose of their offshore bank accounts (the logs would have everything on file).
Any ideas?
Money is deposited by check or by wire transfer. The accounts are opened in the names of individuals or business names. The issue isn’t the records –
The banking laws of various countries are quite explicit – it is a felony for anyone to disclose the banking transactions to any other person unless permission has been granted or a local magistrate has ordered the disclosure of the records.
The (over-simplified) procedure for sharing information with foreign governments is as follows:
Country A asks bank B in Country B for financial records on target. Bank B tells Country A to “go stuff yourself”. Country A then asks Country B to require bank B to send on financial records. Country B tells Country A, “We will look into the matter. If what you say is true about the target, then we will share the records with you.” Country B reviews records of bank B to see if there is any merit to Country A’s allegations. If so, then a few weeks later a court order is issued to bank B to forward records to Country A. If not, Country B tells Country A, “We looked into the matter. There’s no material illegal stuff going on. Stuff it.”