Switzerland, the world’s largest offshore financial centre, has pledged to automatically hand back the details of foreign accounts to other countries in one of the most significant breakthroughs in the global crackdown on tax evasion.
At a meeting of European finance ministers in Paris yesterday, Switzerland agreed to sign up to a new global standard on automatic information exchange in a decisive break with its centuries-old commitment to protecting the privacy of banking clients.
The move is a big step forward for governments that have mounted a concerted attack on evasion in the wake of the global financial crisis and a series of tax scandals.