Although almost entirely filmed in Switzerland, this James Bond does not actually show a Swiss bank scene. Why include it then? Apart from its immense appeal to all lovers of Switzerland, it has a famous scene which James Bond breaks into the office of a Swiss lawyer in broad daylight in downtown Berne. The scene is very striking as its exteriors were filmed on location in Bern.

Two buildings in Bern were used to film the exteriors for this scene. Bond arrives in the Rolls Royce and enters a building at Bollwerk 15 in Bern, just next to the train station. You can see the Heiliggeist Church in the back and Berne's new train station being built opposite. It is a good and credible location for a Swiss lawyer's office. The shot where Bond takes delivery of his high tech burglar kit from the crane was made on the balcony of the Schweizerhof, the most prestigious five stars hotel in Bern, directly opposite the train station.

All interiors at the Swiss lawyer's office (lobby, elevator, corridor and lawyer's office) were filmed in a studio in Hollywood. They do not look Swiss. In Switzerland, you will never find an elevator operator anywhere, least of all in an office building. Much better to replace the elevator by an automatic model, Swiss people would be too embarassed about what to tell the elevator boy during the rides. Moreover, there are never any floor attendants such as the man waiting at the table on the upper floor. The lawyer office itself looks Swiss enough save for the main door in glass which looks here like the office of Humphrey Bogarte in a private detective movie.

The newspaper joke, where Bond grabs a Swiss daily paper (very realistic), and finds an issue of Playboy folded inside, is not extremely realistic. Sure, Swiss lawyers like all men may have private readings, but it is unlikely they would hide it in a daily newspaper that everyone can tell as an old issue. The burglary in broad daylight is not totally inconceivable, Swiss offices at that time did often close for lunch. People working on construction sites are often hired by the hour at very cheap rates (for Switzerland) and are rarely Swiss. It is thus plausible that Bond could bribe one to help him carry his tools with a crane to the lawyer's office. British secret services do organize burglaries abroad and it would make sense for them just to make a copy of the document rather than steal it outright, so that the victim would not know the information has been accessed.

The Novel
The Ian Fleming novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service, published in 1963, does not contain the break in scene but mentions that the British secret service, Station Z in the novel, tried to find out about Blofeld's presence in Switzerland and a possible Swiss bank account:

Station Z had asked for an examination of the secret lists at the banks, a search through those anonymous 'numbered' accounts which conceal the owners of most of the fugitive money in the world. This request gad been peremptorily refused. Blofeld was certainly a great criminal, but the Sécurité must point out that such information could only be legally obtained if the criminal in question was guilty of some crime committed on Federal soil and indictable under the Federal Code. It was true tat this Blofeld had held up Britain and America to ransom by his illegal possession of atomic weapons. But this could not be considered a crime under the laws of Switzerland, and particularly not having regard to Article 47B of the banking laws. So that was that! The Holy Franc, and the funds which backed it, wherever they came from, must remain untouchable. Wir bitten höflichst um Entschuldigung.

Ian Fleming was apparently a man who did his homework, Article 47 does indeed exist in the Swiss Federal Banking Act of 8 November 1934 and says that :

Any person who, in his or her capacity as member of a body, employee, proxy, liquidator or commissioner of a bank, observer for the Banking Commission, or a member of a body or an employee of an authorized auditing firm, has revealed a secret that was entrusted to him or her or of which he or she had knowledge by means of his or her practice or employment, any person who has incited another to violate professional secrecy, will be punished by imprisonment for a maximum of six months or by a fine not exceeding 50,000 francs.

In the novel, we also learn the full text of the letter received by the British heraldist Sable Basilisk from Blofeld, which James Bond steals from the Swiss lawyer's safe in the movie:

Now then, in June last, the tenth, we got this confidential letter from a firm of respectable Zürich solicitors, dated the day before. I'll read it out:

'Honoured Sirs,
'We have a valued client by the name of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. This gentleman styles himself Monsieur le Comte Balthazar de Bleuville in the belief that he is the rightful heir to this title which we understand to be extinct. His belief is based on stories he heard from his parents in childhood to the effect that his family fled France at the time of the Revolution, settled in Germany under the adopted name of Blofeld, assumed in order to evade the Revolutionary authorities and safeguard their fortune which they had sequestered in Augsburg, and subsequently, in the 1850s, migrated to Poland.

'Our client is now anxious to have these facts established in order legally to obtain right to the de Bleuville title supported by an Acte de Notoriété which would in due course receive the stamp of approval of the Ministère de la Justice in Paris. 'In the meantime, our client proposes to continue to adopt, albeit provisionally, the title of Comte de Bleuville together with the family arms which he informs us are "Argent four fusils in fesse gules" and the de Comte de Bleuville motto which, in English, is "For Hearth and Home".'

'We understand that you, honoured Sirs, are the only body in the world who is capable of undertaking this research work and we have been instructed to get in touch with you under the strictest conditions of confidence, which, in view of the social aspects involved, we think we have the right to request.
'The financial standing of our client is impeccable and expense is no object in this matter. As a preliminary honorarium and open acceptance of this commission, we propose a payment of one thousand pounds sterling to your account in such bank as you may designate.
'Awaiting the favour of an early reply, we remain, honoured sirs etc. etc., Gebrüder Gumpold-Moosbrugger, Advokaten, 16 bis, Bahnhofstrasse, Zürich.'