Gestisafe, founded in 2009, and its growing number of rivals aren’t subject to the rules of Switzerland’s financial regulator, which require banks to report “suspicious financial activity” to MROS, the Swiss Money Laundering Reporting Office. MROS says “that may involve illegal money or criminal organizations” or “terrorist financing.”
With American and European regulators pressuring Swiss banks to come clean about their foreign clients’ assets, independently operated safe-deposit boxes are popping up across Switzerland, replacing bank accounts as a preferred method of hiding assets. That’s especially prevalent in Ticino, Switzerland’s sole Italian-speaking canton. “Maybe it’s not only Ticino, but it seems that it’s in Ticino where there is the greatest concern,” says Stiliano Ordolli, head of MROS.