India seeks info from Switzerland on Indians' Swiss banks accounts, calls for info sharing pact

NEW DELHI: India has sought greater information from Switzerland on Indians having accounts in Swiss banks and expressed keenness in signing a bilateral information sharing agreement. The issue was discussed at the high-level meeting between finance minister Arun Jaitley and visiting Swiss Economic Affairs Minister Johann N Schneider-Ammann.

Switzerland had agreed to share information about Indians having accounts in Swiss banks provided India could establish it has evidence over and above the ‘stolen information of HSBC accounts’. "Since a large number of account holders have made admissions before the Government of India. As to whether admissions itself is an evidence on the basis of which they would act, they said indeed they would," FM said after the meeting.

"And this precise fact has been reaffirmed in the meeting today. We have made the request to Switzerland and we have asked them to expedite the process of confirmation of details that we have sought," FM told reporters after the meeting.

"The discussion with the minister was very constructive in a partnership mood.... What we discussed was that Switzerland government took a decision to start a Parliamentary process to qualify the basis for the support to solve these issues. Switzerland is prepared to follow the OECD regulations as we were in the past," Ammann said.

Earlier in the day, Ammann said Switzerland is committed to cooperate with India on black money issue, providing a timely boost to the government that passed a stringent black money law to unearth black money stashed away overseas.

Ammann, said the Swiss laws need to be amended for this cooperation and its Parliament will discuss and ratify it. "Switzerland has decided to follow international standards, including those framed by OECD, in sharing information and providing assistance to foreign countries probing such cases, but we have to ask our Parliament to make changes in our laws," he said at a media interaction on Friday.