Under pressure from the U.S. tax authorities, Swiss wealth
management giant UBS is closing all the offshore accounts
of its rich U.S. clients, the New York Times said on Friday.
UBS, which the U.S. authorities says helped wealthy Americans
hide cash in offshore bank accounts, will shut about 19,000
offshore accounts, the paper said, quoting unnamed U.S.
clients.
A UBS spokesman in Switzerland was not immediately available
to comment on the report.
The Swiss bank, one of the hardest-hit in the credit crisis,
decided in July last year to stop offering offshore accounts
to U.S. citizens after it was targeted by the U.S. tax investigation
which challenges Switzerland's famous banking secrecy laws.
(Article continues below)
As part of the investigation, U.S. authorities indicted
UBS's wealth management chief last year.
