Monday (October 7): The very first tranche of details about financial accounts of its residents in Swiss banks has been received by India under the automatic info exchange framework, the Switzerland government said today.
An information-sharing deal on bank accounts had been signed between India and Switzerland in 2016, which was to come in effect from January 2018.
This exchange of information is being carried out under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), the global reporting standard for such exchange of information, which takes care of aspects such as confidentiality rules and data safeguards.
The CRS has been developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The step is likely to shed more light on the wealth Indians have stashed away in Swiss bank accounts, for so long governed by strict local rules of secrecy.
According to the two Swiss agencies, India is among 75 countries with whom information on bank accounts will be shared this year — AEOIs were implemented with 36 countries last year.
In 2018, data from Zurich-based Swiss National Bank (SNB) had shown that after declining for three years, money parked by Indians in Swiss Banks rose 50 per cent to CHF (Swiss Franc) 1.02 billion (Rs 7,000 crore) in 2017 over the previous year.