After pressure from the U.S. government the Swiss banking regulator forced UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) and other private bankers to cease from visiting potential and existing clients across borders. Those temporary orders have now been rescinded and Swiss private bankers can again visit clients from other countries.
The travel ban emerged from pressure from the U.S. to have the Swiss banks reveal a number of clients from the U.S. which were suspected of using Swiss accounts to evade taxes, especially UBS.
UBS complied with the restrictions as the Swiss regulator also ordered the gigantic bank to change its global policies before doing business and visiting international clients again.
This has of course had a detrimental effect upon UBS, as it wasn’t just the over 4,400 bankers from the company that weren’t allowed to do business, but leading executives at the company were also restricted from pursuing and doing business with numerous wealthy clients across the globe.
Through a number of sponsorships and other mean, UBS has used these particular events to attract potential clients where they would spend time in attempts to draw new customers to their services. Until the ban, only those arms of the company operating in specific countries were allowed to show up to do business, while none of the Swiss were.
UBS has now put into place a new course whereby every banker doing business outside the country, by visiting clients abroad, will be required to take the course bi-annually.
