REUTERS SUMMIT-Coutts & Co boss welcomes DoJ deadline extension in U.S. tax case

(For other news from the Reuters Global Wealth Management Summit (LSE: SUMM.L - news) , click on http://www.reuters.com/summit/Wealth14)

By Joshua Franklin

Geneva, June 16 (Reuters) - The head of international operations for British private bank Coutts on Monday welcomed the U.S. Department of Justice's extended deadline for banks to track down and hand over client data in a tax probe.

The Swiss arm of Coutts, whose parent is state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland, is one of 100-plus Swiss banks who have reason to believe they may have committed tax offences by helping wealthy Americans evade taxes - and are eligible for a non-prosecution agreement if they come clean and face fines.

At the start of June, the U.S. Department of Justice extended the June 30 cut-off point by one month to turn over the necessary information for these so-called category two banks.

Coutts Chief Executive Alexander Classen told the Reuters Global Wealth Management in Geneva that the extension was a boost for the bank as it seeks to complete the tricky task of tracking down the necessary data.

"They have fortunately extended some of the deadlines, which is good as the amount of work that's required to trace in particular former clients is massive and is very resource-intensive," Classen said at the Summit, also taking place at Reuters offices in New York (Frankfurt: HX6.F - news) and Singapore.

Classen said he hoped the bank would settle a non-prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice by the end of the summer, adding the bank was expecting to take a "significant" hit from the investigation.

"We have estimated the cost of the whole project for this year to be somewhere between 5 and 10 million Swiss francs and I wouldn't exclude the final amount to go above that," said Classen. "This is significant for a bank of our size." (Editing by David Holmes; Follow Reuters Summits on Twitter (Berlin: TWR.BE - news) @Reuters_Summits)