The bank has agreed to pay $4.2 million under the US Department of Justice programme. The settlement means Vadian Bank avoids prosecution. Earlier this year, Lugano-headquartered BSI became the first to settle with US authorities under the programme.

Vadian has one office and 26 employees.

As explained by the DoJ in its statement, before 2008, Vadian’s business predominantly consisted of savings accounts, residential mortgage lending and small business loans. In 2007, Vadian hired a marketing firm to assist with its planned growth into private banking, and focused its efforts on attracting external asset managers.

In 2008, after it became publicly known that UBS was a target of a criminal investigation, Vadian accepted accounts from US persons who were forced out of other Swiss banks. At this time, Vadian’s management was aware that the US authorities were pursuing Swiss banks that facilitated tax evasion for US accountholders in Switzerland, but was not deterred because Vadian had no US presence. As a result of its efforts, after August 2008, Vadian attracted cross-border private banking business and increased its US related accounts from two to more than 70, with $76 million in assets under management, the statement continued.

“Through its managers, employees and/or other individuals, Vadian knew or believed that many of its US accountholders were not complying with their US tax obligations, and Vadian would and did assist those clients to conceal assets and income from the IRS, ,” the statement said.

Vadian’s services included: “hold mail” services; numbered accounts, where the client was known to most bank employees only by a number or code name; opening and maintaining accounts for US taxpayers through non-US entities such as corporations, trusts or foundations; and accepting instructions from US-based accountholders to prevent investments from being made in US-based securities that would require disclosure to US tax authorities, it said.