Swiss banks once had `23K-cr
Funds held via fiduciaries used to be in billions THE QUANTAM of the money parked by Indians in Swiss Banks has been falling since 2006-end, except for in 2011 and in 2013 when Indians’ money had risen by over 12% and 42%, respectively
Money parked by Indians in Switzerland’s banks nearly halved to 676 Swiss francs (about `4,500 crore) in 2016 to hit a record low amid a continuing clampdown on the suspected black money stashed behind their famed secrecy walls.
The figures fell sharply across all categories last year, the SNB data showed.
This is the lowest amount of funds held by Indians in the Swiss banks ever since the Alpine nation began making the data public in 1987 and marks the third straight year of decline.
The funds held through fiduciaries or wealth managers alone used to be in billions till 2007 but has been falling amid fears of regulatory crackdown.
The funds held by Indians with Swiss banks stood at a record high of `23,000 crore at 2006-end, but has now come down to nearly onetenth of that level in about a decade.
The quantum of these funds has been falling since then, except for in 2011 and in 2013 when Indians' money had risen by over 12 per cent and 42 per cent, respectively.
As per the available data since 1987, the earlier lowest ever figure was recorded in 1995 at CHF 723 million.
The latest data from Zurich-based SNB comes ahead of a new framework for automatic exchange of information between Switzerland and India to help check the stash menace. While Switzerland has already begun sharing foreign client details on evidence of wrongdoing provided by India and some other countries, it has agreed to further expand its cooperation on India's fight against black money with a new pact for automatic information exchange from next year.
There have been several rounds of discussions between Indian and Swiss government officials on the new framework and also for expediting the pending information requests about suspected illicit accounts of Indians in Swiss banks.