When reading about Swiss banks in spy thrillers or Hollywood movies, one wonders how many of these writers and movie directors have actually been inside a Swiss bank. Our knowledge comes only from what we see in the books and movies and we obviously no further information from the banks' side. If we did, we would clearly not publish it.

A few authors rise to the top of their class in terms of their research of Swiss banks: the American Robert Ludlum and the English Jeffrey Archer and Ian Fleming. From their writing they both appear to have a comprehensive, first hand experience of real Swiss banks.

A remarkable fact is that the more authors know about Swiss banks, the less prejudice they have. Authors who clearly have never set foot in a real Swiss banks such as Dan Brown or David Mamet have the most preconceptions and negative attitudes. We do hope that in the future more authors will open their own Swiss bank accounts so that they can write a more accurate image of Swiss banks.