Central Claims Office's limitations

The Central Claims Office's possibilities are restricted to customer relationships reported as being dormant. If a really existing relationship is not (yet) considered as dormant, it is not (yet) reported by the bank concerned and consequently can not (yet) be located by the Central Claims Office. Thus, for example, involving the Central Claims Office does not make sense if a proxy maintains contact with a bank although the real customer has already passed away.

Closed relationships are not considered as dormant neither and are therefore not reported into the centralised databank by the banks.

The Central Claims Office is not competent if an inquiry is related to a victim of the persecution by the Nazi-regime. On this behalf, an independent procedure was set up some years ago in which the Ombudsman can not intervene at all (www.crt-ii.org).

Finally, as experience showed, involving the Central Claims Office does not make sense if the inquiry concerns a case where there was no more contact between the customer and the bank after the end of the Second World War. In 1997 already, Swiss banks published lists of still existing customer relationships from that period.  For further information on this please contact the following address.

Central Claims Office for Swiss Bank Accounts being Dormant since World War II
P.O. Box 2761
CH-4002 Basel

If, after taking note of the above information, you have decided in favour of polling the centralised databank of dormant customer relationships of Swiss banks, you can get the necessary questionnaire by completing the ordering form or upon written inquiry to the following address.

Swiss Banking Ombudsman
Central Claims Office
P.O. Box 1818
CH-8021 Zurich