Swiss banks widen access to accounts

Swiss banks bowed to criticism yesterday and made it easier to find dormant accounts from the Holocaust era.

The Swiss Bankers Association said it was publishing a list of 3,687 foreign names in three newspapers - in yesterday's editions of The New York Times and the international edition of the Neue Zuercher Zeitung of Switzerland, as well as in Friday's edition of the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth.

The foreign names were first disclosed on 29 October along with more than 10,000 Swiss names on accounts that have been without instructions from their owners since the end of the Second World War.

The association also has reverted to an easier system on the Internet, allowing viewers to see all the names. -- AP