Swiss banks denied it is helping wealthy Germans dodge taxes by telling them to move funds to Singapore and other money centres ahead of a Swiss tax deal due to come into force in January.

"We do not help clients to evade taxes and we clearly don't support clients in circumventing bilateral tax agreements, including the one with Germany," UBS private bank boss Juerg Zeltner told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

He was responding to a media report last week which said UBS, Europe's fifth-largest bank by market value, had advised German clients to move funds to Singapore to avoid detection by authorities ahead of the planned withholding tax.