The Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Ebrahim Sheibani, has recently been quoted stating that his country is moving billions of dollars of its money out of the European Union to limit the impact of any economic sanctions that may be brought following Iran's decision to continue with its nuclear power programme.

The governor has also stated that most of the money removed from the coffers of Europe's bank would be on the way to financial institutions in the Far East.

The governor's statement elicited an immediate response from the Swiss banking industry. "If you're talking in terms of a safe haven proposal, that's where Switzerland is very strong. We are a country that is non-judgemental," said Steve Bernard, director of the Geneva Financial Centre. "Because of its non-discriminatory practices, Switzerland has always been an attractive place and would remain an attractive proposal for Iranian authorities."

How have we managed to reach such a ludicrously topsy-turvy moral proposition, where being prepared to take money from a government led by a vociferous anti-Semite is now seen as "non-discriminatory" and "non- judgemental"?

The response of the bonkers Swiss bankers highlights that, whilst the rest of us may worry about the global impact of Iran becoming a nuclear power, there's always someone out there ready to make a fast buck.

Yet this wouldn't be the first time that Swiss banks have deserted the moral high ground and dived into the political gutter in order to fill their coffers. Six years ago the Swiss Bank Corporation, one of two banks that merged in 1998 to create UBS, admitted it owned the Golleschauer cement factory in Poland where SS officers forced at least 400 prisoners from the nearby Auschwitz concentration camp to work. As a result of this admission, UBS, along with another big Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, has agreed to a $1.25bn deal to compensate victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

Economists estimate Iran will have earned more than $40bn in oil revenues by the end of the financial year to March 2006. Of these revenues, $16bn will go directly to budgeted government spending. The rest goes to the Central Bank of Iran which keeps an unknown amount in foreign accounts. The Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), the powerful trade and financing arm of the National Iranian Oil Company, is based in Switzerland.

As long as Iran continues to have the necessary facilities for banking available, the calls for it to halt its progress to becoming a nuclear state will continue to fall on deaf ears. History has shown us that morality and banking have not had a good relationship.

Unfortunately, the recent statements coming from the Swiss banks tend to suggest that they have learned nothing from their past mistakes and, without international pressure, they will be prepared to sell global security short in exchange for 30 pieces of silver.