UBS piles up losses, clients withdraw assets

ZURICH (AFP) - – Swiss banking giant UBS on Tuesday plunged into further losses during the third quarter as clients spooked by tax scrutiny withdrew billions of dollars of funds and assets from the bank.
The bank said in a statement that its net loss for the three months ending September 30 reached 564 million francs (373 million euros, 552 million dollars), largely hit by credit charges.
The flagship of Switzerland's banking industry also failed to stem an outflow of funds.
Customers withdrew assets amounting to 36.7 billion francs over the quarter, bringing the total outflows over the first nine months of the year to 91.1 billion francs.
The outflows were particularly marked in the United States, where the bank agreed in August to disclose details of 4,450 accounts in order to stave off potentially damaging tax fraud charges brought by US authorities.