Swiss banks drop U.S. clients due to UBS case: report

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss banks including ZKB and Mirabaud are pulling out of business with individuals who pay U.S. taxes, newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung (NZZ) reported on Saturday.

The banks are reacting to pressure from U.S. authorities, who are waging a legal battle with UBS to try to force it to give up the names of tens of thousands of Americans suspected of cheating the U.S. government by concealing accounts abroad, the newspaper said.

Without giving its sources, NZZ said ZKB wanted to stop doing business with all customers domiciled in the United States by the end of the year, most of whom would be Swiss who had emigrated. It affects less than 1 percent of privately held ZKB's assets under management, NZZ said.

The newspaper quoted Mirabaud executive committee member Yves Mirabaud as saying: "We are now getting rid of the few U.S. customers that we have."

A second newspaper, TagesAnzeiger, reported HSBC had written to clients and wealth managers in September 2008 to ask them to waive banking secrecy on their Swiss accounts in connection with 28 countries, including China, Poland and Turkey.

HSBC is Switzerland's third largest private bank with about 200 billion francs under management, TagesAnzeiger said.

None of ZKB, Mirabaud and HSBC were immediately available to comment on the reports.

The lawsuit against UBS, which is losing clients due to its tax and subprime woes, is being closely watched by the offshore banking industry which is concerned by a global crackdown on tax cheats.

(Reporting by Sam Cage, Editing by Peter Blackburn)