Switzerland is quickly closing down its decades-long practice of banking secrecy in favour of fiscal transparency.
Swiss authorities announced on Thursday that the government plans to increase dramatically the number national agreements it has for sharing bank account information.
The Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) process has already been agreed with 38 nations, including all those in the EU. Information exchange will become the norm in 2017.
AEOI is a global standard which aims to reduce tax fraud and evasion. It requires all banks to report every year to their national tax authorities information on clients such as account holdings and earnings from dividends and shares. Information on expat residents will be passed on to the tax offices in their home countries.
The Swiss parliament is expected to agree similar agreements before the end of the year with Iceland, Norway, Japan, Canada, South Korea and the British crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.
Last week it said it is hoping to reach agreement with 21 additional countries, including Brazil, Argentina, India, Israel and South Africa, with accords in place for information flow to begin by January 2019.
