Swiss banks ask India to ensure secrecy for info

India will have to ensure confidentiality of information about its citizens’ Swiss bank accounts received through the new automatic exchange window, failing which the Alpine nation will stop sharing the data.

Switzerland and its banks will also keep a close watch on the data protection measures taken by India regarding the details received from other jurisdictions and want all other global financial centres to implement the global framework for automatic exchange of information (AEOI) on financial matters.

On Friday, the Swiss Federal Council ratified the AEOI with India and 40 other jurisdictions to facilitate immediate sharing of details about suspected black money. The pact with India would not be subject to referendum and is planned for implementation in 2018, with the first set of data to be exchanged in 2019.

Bankers in Switzerland said this plan will give them enough time to study the implementation by other global financial centres and the adherence to confidentiality and data protection requirements by India and other recipients.

They also clarified this exercise would be followed not just for India, but all countries with which Switzerland will share banking information under the automatic route.

Switzerland competes with Singapore, Dubai, Hong Kong, London and New York among the major global financial hubs.

Black money issue has been a political hot potato for long and the Indian government has stepped up its efforts in recent years to clamp down on this menace. These efforts have included hectic parleys with the Swiss authorities. “We would like to ensure that data that will be transmitted in 2019 is used for tax verification purposes only... if data received from another country has been misused, Switzerland is unlikely to send data to that jurisdiction,” the grouping’s manager Jan Langlo told PTI from Geneva.