Death Of Swiss Banks As We Know Them!

Two things come to our mind when we hear of the name Switzerland - first those awesome watches they make and second their banks. We all know this article is not about the Swiss watches however incredible they are, we sure are going to discuss the future of Swiss Banks.

Swiss Banks enjoy huge deposits every year due to their Bank Secrecy Laws. Through carefully guarded legacy for decades, Swiss Laws prohibit banks to expose their clients' information even to the respective governments. On the other hand criticisms towards this mechanism was that it encourages unaccounted money & money laundering as it seriously hinders investigations regarding corruptions. Although Swiss claims they have placed strict mechanisms to fight Money Laundering, CIA World Factbook says the Switzerland is still vulnerable to layering and integration stages of money laundering. According to Helvea study Swiss has around 800 billion Swiss Francs of illegal money deposited into its banks.

But how long can Switzerland continue this elite state of unaffected fund inflows? It doesn't seem so in front of the newly enacted U.S. based Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act (FATCA). For those who are not aware of, FATCA is the new law that will give IRS access to financial accounts maintained by their tax payers in Non-U.S. banks even outside U.S. boundary like Switzerland. To know more about FATCA read here.

The tentacles of the law tightened more around the mid-European country when it signed on a treaty with U.S. to comply with FATCA. We don't know how it happened but U.S. simply dictated to Swiss to give up their bank secrecy state (at least w.r.t. U.S. Citizens) and provide a direct window into their bank records. Every year Swiss banks have to report the account information of their U.S. customers to IRS. Who can stand eye to the Big Daddy?

So what is the implication of this FACTA? Although it doesn't prevent U.S. citizens to invest in Swiss banks directly, it takes out the essential benefit of investing in them. How? The whole point in going to a Swiss bank is its ability to protect its customers account information. In past the Swiss had been subject to so much pressure so many times to expose their clients' information but they never budged in, not even slightly. Even during Nazi regime the Swiss tried as hard as they could to protect their client information. This increased their credibility and many high network individuals who had surplus funds invested in Swiss banks. But if their hands are twisted to give out their U.S. client's account information, those clients will be accountable for that money. Since their invested money is accountable in either case, investors would rather invest in their own country and save themselves from cross border risks.

This is not the end of the story. It is not only U.S. that is doing FATCA. The five major economies of European Union the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy are together working on a pilot model of tax information exchange which will prevent tax evasion by their citizens. These economies can also potentially force Swiss banks to reveal their citizens accounts. Of the estimated 800 billion Swiss Francs illegal money in Swiss banks, a major portion comes from Germany alone.

The BRICS nations are also working on a tax information exchange. It won't be far when these nations come up with a platform of their own and ask Switzerland for their citizens' information. Essentially this all led to a drain on the bank secrecy status of Switzerland and its banks. Many critics have also started arguing against the possibility of Money Laundering happening in Swiss systems and thus encouraging illegal activities across the globe.

It is not the end of the Swiss Banking days, definitely no. But unless they change their Unique Selling Point from Client Secrecy to a more competitive strategy like Service they won't be able to sustain in the long run.

Mass - The Boss (Project 3 - Toastmasters)

This is the transcript of my Toastmasters P3 speech. So you may find the article more 'speaking' than written. But I left it that way to preserve the delivery for which it is intended. I am sure you will also find enjoyment in reading this.

Mass - The Boss

Good Evening! I would like to start by asking you a question. How many of you here want to be an entrepreneur? How many are entrepreneurs? How many have left back your ideas just because you thought that the idea may not work well or you thought you won’t find an investor? Fine, Let’s leave this aside for a while.

I would like to tell you a story. Scott Wilson, a Chicago based industrial designer designed a watch that could convert an iPod Nano into a multi-touch watch. Although the design was impressive, he was not able to find a manufacturer for the watch. After trying with many investors he turned towards the people of the world. His objective was to raise $15,000 pay for manufacturing expenses. But the project received such a good response that people end up over investing in it. Any guesses how much investment was made? Codenamed Lunatik the project attracted some 13,500 investors investing about 1 Million dollars. The watch is now sold by all major U.S. retailers including Apple’s very own iStore. Just months back the watch was struggling to find an investor but now it is a massive hit among ipod users.

So who are these PEOPLE, the Angels who came to Scott’s rescue? They are none other than people like us, the common men, the mass, the crowd. The process is called Crowd funding or crowd sourcing. It enables people like us to become investors. If you want to be an investor in crowd funding, you can be one with as little as Rs.50 or… no Rs.60, can’t trust Rupee these days. It is falling like anything. The only time Rupee goes up these days is during a toss J. So to be safe let’s say you can be an investor with as little as $1.

So how this crowdfunding works? I will tell you how tradition investment process works and then how crowdfunding works. In the traditional process, once I conceive an idea I will go to the market and conduct a feasibility study to establish the commercial viability of the project. If found viable I will create a business proposal after which I will go to an Angel Investor who will provide seed fund to start the initial operations of the venture. If the venture remains profitable after 2-3 years another guy called Venture Capitalist comes in and puts in more money to expand venture. The catch here is, getting to an Angel Investor or a Venture Capitalist is very difficult. It is more difficult than getting MMS open his mouth and speak louder.

In Crowd funding the process is pretty simple. After due diligence, I will present the proposal on the crowdfunding platforms. Note here that all the crowdfunding platforms are online and hence proposals are required to be in Video format to be more interactive and lively. People who visit these platforms, if the find my idea interesting, they will invest in my project. An added advantage of Crowdfunding is that the immediate feedback it gives about your idea. Here decisions are taken by 1000s of investors unlike traditional process in which decisions are taken by 1 or 2 persons. It is always better if some 1000 people say your idea is better than a few individuals saying so.

Lunatik is not the only success story that came out of crowd funding. Many projects had raised funding to kick start their operations. One more interesting fact of crowdfunding is the innovative ideas it encourages. For example consider this crowd funded project in which a team of students and lecturers working on a 6 foot giant spider robot in which a person can actually ride on. Amazing isn't it?

Crowdfunding doesn't only support commercial and fun projects. In fact projects like philanthropy, disaster relief, community projects are also funded through this platform. A platform called indiegogo.com gathered around 200K$ for Sandy cyclone relief fund –that rocked eastern part of United states last year.

So all you entrepreneurs sitting here, I would like to ask you to reconsider your ideas. Roll up your sleeves and get them back from the racks. Propose it on to the crowd and be assured we, the people, the mass is always there to support you. Life is lived only once. Let’s pursue our dreams and make the most out of it.