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In an interview given to a French magazine in July 1998, the Public Prosecutor for Geneva, Bernard Bertossa, a signatory to the Geneva Appeal, made the following statement about the globalisation of financial crime: ‘I have to admit, I was far from suspecting that it had become so widespread … each year the cases of crime which we deal with in Geneva represent hundreds of millions of dollars.’ The journalist interviewing him asked: ‘How long docs it take to trace the route of funds which go around the world in a matter of moments?’ The Swiss magistrate replied, ‘if their path is complex enough it can take at least ten years or so …’

A unifying theme apparent at this year's Symposium was the need for balance when lifting the veil of bank secrecy: (1) the need to protect civil liberties versus the need to fight crime; (2) the bank's need to balance its role as policeman while furthering its commercial objectives; (3) the necessity of weighing international cooperation against the awareness that individual nations jealously guard their own legislative regime; (4) the dichotomy of technology that serves both to protect and penetrate secrecy; (5) the balance required when investigating crimes.