A new list is to be published by Swiss banks of dormant second World War account holders will contain the names of more than 20,000 people, the newspaper Sonntags Zeitang quoted a banking official as saying yesterday.
"If no limits are imposed in terms of numbers, there should be well beyond 20,000 names," Mr Paul Hasenfratz, deputy president of the Swiss Bankers' Association, told the weekly.
A list containing the names of some 1,872 foreign holders of dormant accounts was published last week by Swiss banks in a bid to trace the assets of Jews murdered under Hitler's regime.
The second list will contain the names of dormant accounts opened by Swiss nationals during the second World War.
Mr Hesenfratz said that the Bank of Zurich, of which he is president, alone had several thousand dormant accounts opened by Swiss nationals.
The list already published by Swiss banks is of accounts opened before 1945 and not used since.
It was supposed to include only the names of suspected victims of the Nazis, notably Jews killed in the Holocaust.
However, it quickly emerged that some of the 1,872 individuals named had nothing to do with deported Jewish families. Some have even been found to be former Nazis and collaborators with the Hitler regime.
The publication of the list has raised fears that it would prove the end of Switzerland's bank secrecy laws.
Swiss banks, however, have reassured clients that this was an exception and the laws will continue to remain in place.
Mr Hasenfratz estimated in the billions the amount of dirty or suspicious money placed in Swiss accounts. - (AFP)