UBS

The Justice Department of the US appealed to the federal court to permit them to make HSBC to share information about their clients. The government wants to get the details of rich Americans who hold their money in offshore accounts in India to evade high income taxes.

UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, has announced today the name of a new CEO of UBS Group Americas. According to the official statement starting from January Philip Lofts will lead the bank. Currently Philip Lofts works as a chief risk officer. Robert Wolf, a former CEO of the Americas will remain chairman of the region and president of the investment bank. 

Maureen Miskovic was appointed to the position of chief risk officer. She will be the first woman who joined the 13-member group executive board.

The US major gained across the board in early European session Tuesday, climbing to near a 2-week high against the Swiss franc. The dollar also gained against the yen and it recovered from more than a 5-month low against the pound and a 1-week low against the euro.

During early European trading today, the Swiss franc slipped across the board despite an encouraging earnings report from the Swiss UBS. The franc touched near a 2-week low against the dollar and more than a 5-week low against the euro.

Parliament of Switzerland at last approved a Swiss-US tax treaty over the future of UBS AG. The two houses of parliament have come to the consensus not to arrange a referendum on the issue after talks on Thursday. Now Swiss tax authorities will be able to hand over on time to U.S. counterparts the accounts of 4,450 UBS clients that Switzerland's biggest bank helped to dodge taxes.

The alpine currency extended its Asian session gains, climbing versus pound and euro and recovering from losses against its US and Japanese rivals as an encouraging economic report from UBS that lifted investors' sentiments. The Swiss franc thus touched a 5-day high against the euro and a 4-day low against the pound and moved slightly off from new multi-month lows against the US dollar and multi-day lows against the yen.

UBS has rolled out IBM's Zone Trusted Information Channel (ZTIC) online banking security hardware to its customers. It is the first bank to offer such kind of functionality.

IBM’s product is a USB-attached device which being connected to a user’s PC increases the level of security above existing protection systems. Using this device customers log into their accounts and confirm transactions via a display on it.

On Friday Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court said that Swiss financial markets regulator FINMA broke Swiss bank secrecy law in February when it ordered UBS to hand over the files of nearly 300 clients to U.S. authorities.

As is known FINMA decided to allow UBS to hand over some client data to U.S. tax officials on February 18, weakening the country's strict bank secrecy rules in an effort to end a damaging probe into its biggest bank that prompted clients to pull billions of francs from accounts and leave in droves.

Credit Suisse said it expects to pay a hefty $536 million to settle a US probe.

The investigation is into payments made between 2002 and 2007 involving countries and entities that face US economic sanctions and such a settlement would be a second heavy payment made by a Swiss bank to US authorities this year. 

Credit Suisse said the expected settlement would likely result in a 445 million Swiss franc ($429 million) charge this quarter, or about 360 million francs after tax.

 The Financial Services Authority fined UBS £8 million - its third-largest fine ever - for failing to prevent employees from posting unauthorized trading losses to customer accounts.

Sunday, UBS alerted US customers by registered mail their account details may be given to US tax authorities, a method that could itself breach secrecy laws.

 Registered mail and envelopes use reflects that UBS may let the US authorities trace customers wanted for tax evasion well before their details are handed over under a US-Swiss double taxation agreement.

 According to some speculations the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is expected to fine Citigroup Inc $600,000 for derivatives transactions that helped foreign clients avoid taxes on dividends.

The source with the knowledge of the matter reported that the fine is expected to be announced on Monday. The move comes as nations around the world are starting to prosecute tax evasion so as to close widening budget gaps fueled by economic slump.

 The key informant in the U.S. tax evasion case against Swiss bank UBS AG faces prison next year, but his harsher-than-expected treatment by the U.S. Justice Department will undermine efforts to expose secretive offshore tax havens, lawyers and whistle-blower advocates say.

Bradley Birkenfeld, a 44-year-old U.S. citizen, has been hailed by his attorneys and prosecutors alike as pivotal to the tax case against UBS, his former employer.

 Tuesday, UBS announced it hired a Morgan Stanley investment banker, Michael Ostow, 41, who will lead its insurance practice in North America as a managing director. That is months after the bank lost two senior insurance bankers to Greenhill & Co.

Michael Ostow will join UBS as a managing director and report to Americas co-heads of the financial institutions group, Gary Howe and Halle Benett.

 Citigroup Inc, UBS AG and Deutsche Bank AG, lead underwriters for the IPO, have been ordered by The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to pay up to $845,000 in fines and restitution as a result of communications breaches related to the 2006 initial public offering of Vonage Holdings Corp.