Switzerland and Singapore have deepened their cooperation in banking – including on a key push to pursue alleged tax dodgers and cheats.
Singapore is often called the Switzerland of the east for its burgeoning finance center, and the Asian city-state is set to overtake the alpine nation as an offshore manager.
The two countries have agreed to begin exchanging data on tax cheats and dodgers from next year, Switzerland's finance department said in a statement on Monday.
The move is significant because the U.S. for example has been vocal about seeking out so-called Swiss bank leavers, or those who shutter accounts in Switzerland for another offshore center. Singapore is an oft-mentioned country, though to be sure – the U.S. isn't adopting mutual data-sharing within the OECD.
Asia Moves
Singapore has chosen a so-called wider approach to collecting data, but been slow to commit to how exactly it would share the data around.
By contrast, Switzerland begins sharing data with 38 countries from next year. Bern diplomats have said they would like to see how rival financial centers like Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Singapore will handle the automatic exchange of information in order to ensure a level competitive playing field.
Asia has given several hints in the last month: four weeks ago, Singapore set up a mechanism with which it can share data out with partners. Earlier this month, Hong Kong also established a framework for doing so and widened the range of countries it could link up with, under increasing international pressure to fall into line with standards for swapping data.
Swiss Ties
On Monday, representatives for Switzerland and Singapore signed a bilateral deal to exchange data from 2019, pending approval from Swiss parliament for the deal. The two offshore centers, which have maintained extremely close ties in recent years, also signed a pact to cooperate even more closely on financial services.
According to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore's website, no agreements have been inked yet under the newly-created facility.
If Singapore has found a mentor in Switzerland in building up its offshore center in the last 30 years, the city-state has not followed its lead on sharing data. Instead, Singapore has directed to Hong Kong, which also been equally slow to adopt data-sharing agreements.
