More Swiss financial firms have signed up to the US initiative or ‘programme’ designed to draw a line under years of wrangling between Switzerland and the US over tax evasion allegations.

Bank Linth, a subsidiary of Liechtensteinische Landesbank, has recently reached a non-prosecution agreement with the US as part of a programme by the US to stamp out tax evasion.

The bank said it had reached a final, out-of-court settlement of the US tax issue with the US Department of Justice. The US will refrain from criminal prosecution. In return, Bank Linth will pay about SFr3.9 million ($4.2 million), a trivial sum.

At the end of 2013, Bank Linth decided to join the US tax programme as part of ‘category two’ (banks in this category believe there is a risk that they might be holding undeclared money). Opting for this category was “done for the sake of caution and in the interest of achieving a final resolution,” the bank said.

Ersparniskasse Schaffhausen has also just signed a non-prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice under the US-Swiss bank programme.

EKS will pay a penalty of $2.066 million. Since 1 August 2008, EKS provided private banking services for 90 US-related accounts with around $65 million in assets.

EKS was founded in 1817 and is wholly owned by a Swiss charitable foundation. It is headquartered in the city and canton of Schaffhausen. EKS opened, maintained and serviced accounts for US persons that it knew or had reason to know had probably not declared their tax liability to the Internal Revenue Service or the US Department of the Treasury, as required by US law.