Swiss government to provide information on black money

NEW DELHI: In a significant development, Switzerland has agreed to provide requested banking information in a time-bound manner to help New Delhi's in crackdown of black money. The Swiss authorities would also "assist in obtaining confirmation on genuineness of bank documents on request by the Indian side and also swiftly provide information on requests related to non-banking information".

The breakthrough, which comes after Switzerland's repeated refusal to share information with Indian authorities on alleged cases of black money stashed in Swiss banks, was achieved at a high-level meeting between senior government officials of the two countries in Berne.

"... the Swiss competent authority will provide the Indian side with the requested information in a time-bound manner or else indicate the reasons why the cases cannot be answered within the agreed timeline," a Swiss-Indian joint statement said after a highlevel meeting between the officials of the two countries on tax matters. On sharing of information on the bank account holders in infamous HSBC list, Switzerland has said "it would be willing to examine requests for which investigations have been carried out independently form what Swiss government considers as data obtained in breach of Swiss law.

India has been pressing for information on bank accounts and other details of the persons named in this list, but Switzerland has been refusing to cooperate saying these names were obtained “illegally” or from data stolen by ex-employees. New Delhi had received the data from French authorities. The meeting took place in Berne between Revenue Secretary Shaktikanta Das and his Swiss counterpart, State Secretary for International Financial Matters, Jacques de Watteville, an official statement said on Thursday.