Jacques Darier, 89; Banker Was Part of 200-Year Tradition
Jacques Darier, 89, a Swiss banker whose family has been managing money for the rich in Geneva for more than 200 years, died Monday, his family said.
He was the father of Pierre and Bertrand Darier, partners at Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie, the second-largest private bank in Geneva.
He was well known in the industry at a time when banking secrecy laws were a main reason that clients chose to deposit their money in Switzerland.
According to one story, Darier went so far as to swallow a piece of paper listing phone numbers of his customers to protect them from the prying eyes of police.
“The action corresponded not only to the spirit of the times but to the spirit of private banking in that period,” Anton Keller, secretary of the Swiss Investors Protection Assn., said in a telephone interview.
According to the Geneva Society for Genealogy, Darier was a descendant of Jean-Louis Darier, who founded a bank in 1795 in Geneva, the private banking capital of Switzerland.
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