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Geneva's public prosecutor searched the premises of HSBC Holdings PLC
"A search is currently underway in the premises of the bank, led by Attorney General Olivier Jornot and the prosecutor Yves Bertossa," Geneva's prosecutor said in a statement.
HSBC, Europe's biggest bank, apologised to customers and investors on Sunday for past practices at its Swiss private bank following allegations that it helped hundreds of clients dodge taxes.
The prosecutor said its investigation was into HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) and could extend to individuals.
Spokesmen for HSBC in Geneva and London declined to comment.
The bank has said compliance and controls at its Swiss private bank in the period up to 2007 fell short of requirements. But it said the business had been transformed in recent years, adding that many people alleged to have been customers had long since left and that some were never clients.
The disclosures have sparked a political row in Britain over practices at HSBC and whether tax authorities had done enough to pursue possible wrongdoers. Some other tax authorities are looking at the allegations to assess if their nationals evaded tax.
Telegraph journalist resigns
In a separate but related development, Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator at UK's The Telegraph newspaper resigned, saying the newspaper coverage of HSBC's doings is a a "fraud on its readers". He alleged that the newspaper had watered down its coverage of the scandal in order to retain HSBC as an advertiser.
Oborne also claimed that the so-called 'Chinese Wall' between editorial and advertising has all but collapsed at the newspaper, widely considered to be pro-conservative in the UK.
According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, generally considered to be on the Labour side of the political fence, Oborne said the Telegraph had "discouraged stories critical of HSBC since the start of 2013, when the bank suspended its advertising with the paper following a Telegraph investigation into accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. He said one former Telegraph executive told him HSBC was 'the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend'."
