New Delhi/Berne: As Switzerland strives hard to re-establish its global financial centre position after clamping down on secrecy walls of its banks, there has been a significant surge in the number of cases where it has initiated process to share information on Indians with Swiss bank accounts and shot off letters to about a dozen such individuals last week itself.
Since March, at least 25 notices have been issued by the Swiss authorities to Indian clients of Switzerland-based banks in which they have been given one last chance to appeal against sharing of their details with India.
An analysis of the notices issued by the Federal Tax Administration, Switzerland government's nodal department for sharing of information on foreign clients of Swiss banks, shows that the Swiss government has stepped up its efforts in sharing such details with a number of countries in the recent months, but the surge in India-related cases is noticeable in the past few weeks. At least 11 such notices were issued to Indian nationals on May 21 itself, though the gazette notifications of the Swiss government has redacted full names for several of them while making public only their initials beside the nationality and the dates of birth.