‘Kiss of death’: how the US killed a Swiss merchant bank

Published on April 21, 2026

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Michael Bär has long said banking is in his genes. A great-grandson of Julius Baer’s founder, he grew up during the heyday of Swiss private banking, when secrecy and security drew in the world’s wealthy – including those with nefarious motives for avoiding scrutiny. The business he launched in 2018 was pitched as an alternative to the sector’s old guard, which had retreated from riskier business and tightened controls in the face of a US crackdown on tax evasion and sanctions breaches. Less than a decade later MBaer Merchant Bank is in liquidation, its fate sealed by the US Treasury’s February invocation of “Section 311”, a power allowing banks deemed a “primary money laundering concern” to be cut off from the American financial system. “Section 311 is not used a lot but when it is, it is the kiss of death,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security at the Royal United Services Institute. While MBaer described itself as “the bank with a soul”, run ... Full story here Are you the author?

About Swissinfo

SWI swissinfo.ch – the international service of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Since 1999, swissinfo.ch has fulfilled the federal government’s mandate to distribute information about Switzerland internationally, supplementing the online offerings of the radio and television stations of the SBC. Today, the international service is directed above all at an international audience interested in Switzerland, as well as at Swiss citizens living abroad.

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