As a Swiss, in a way it was sobering to see one of our dominant industries brought to heel so quickly. On the other hand, it was very satisfying to see those banks, who for decades had hid behind their hand tailored secrecy laws to do business with Nazis, dictators, and drug dealers, and were domestically untouchable, finally clean up their acts.
As for "culturally and morally values privacy", I would find that a lot easier to believe if those privacy advocates had equally lobbied for the privacy of salary statements for the employed. But, hey, someone has to keep paying taxes, if the rich don't.
Now, deprived of other unsavory sources of wealth, Swiss Banks are eagerly dabbling in cryptocurrencies.
Sincere question: Do the Swiss have any moral debates about the source of wealth from third world countries' dictators, politicians etc and the impact on these countries of their action of enabling the 'theft' ?
Or is the Swiss view generally more like what it has been historically, that they are neutral and provide a service that others can't.
The traditional view is indeed that we shouldn't legislate things happening in other countries. As an example for what is going on though, we're set to have a vote on the Responsible Business Initiative[0] under which "companies will be legally obliged to incorporate respect for human rights and the environment in all their business activities [...] abroad".
While initiatives usually fail the popular vote, it is not so certain for this one. It has very broad support. All parties have to argue their position regarding initiatives that will get voted on. So yes certainly there is a debate on such issues.
There have been debates for at least 40 years. People like e.g. Jean Ziegler were highly critical of banking practices when otherwise they were still being seen as business as usual: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Ziegler
35 years ago, there was a referendum that would have prevented banking privacy from being used to cover up crime. It failed decisively, but showed that at least 25% of the voters were in favor.
A few years later, after the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos, Swiss banks for the first time in my memory blocked some of his funds, and subsequently the banks were much more circumspect in dealing with dictators.
The next step was the debate about dormant Holocaust era accounts, which led to an official historical commission. That certainly led to domestic debate, which was complicated somewhat by the international pressure under which Switzerland found itself.
And finally, in recent years, after more scandals and stricter banking rules imposed especially by the US, the banks finally seem to be getting out of the organized crime business.
You can view it as that the previous strategy of the biggest players was to give some scraps to other countries like Switzerland to have them as (unofficial) allies, and now they are out for the whole cake and not willing to share anything.
As for "culturally and morally values privacy", I would find that a lot easier to believe if those privacy advocates had equally lobbied for the privacy of salary statements for the employed. But, hey, someone has to keep paying taxes, if the rich don't.
Now, deprived of other unsavory sources of wealth, Swiss Banks are eagerly dabbling in cryptocurrencies.