Losses at Santander and Optimal are huge

One of the hardest-hit European victims, Optimal Investment Services of Geneva, was unusually concentrated in Mr. Madoff’s firm. A unit of Santander of Spain, Optimal had $3.1 billion invested with Mr. Madoff through its Optimal Strategic U.S. Equity Fund, out of a total of $10.5 billion under management.Optimal and a spokesman for Santander declined to comment.While the losses at Santander and Optimal are huge, other famously conservative European financial names have also been tarnished by their link to Mr. Madoff.Union Bancaire Privée, based in Geneva, had an approximate $1 billion exposure to the firm, or about 1 percent of its $125 billion in assets under management.The losses are an embarrassment for the firm, which has long promoted itself as an expert in diversification, risk management and finding safe products for its investors.But they are also awkward for the Swiss banking establishment, which was rocked this year when top executives at UBS, one of its biggest banks, resigned after revealing billions of losses on American subprime mortgage debt.Swiss officials said they were shocked by the suspected scheme, but directed the blame back at the United States, especially American regulators, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, and accounting firms.“Like the rest of the world, we are scratching our heads, wondering how on earth the S.E.C. and top auditing companies could have had the wool pulled over their eyes for so many years,” James Nason, a spokesman for the Swiss Bankers Association, said