Can Banks Still Keep a Secret?: Bank Secrecy in Financial Centres around the World

Description

The duty to keep customer information confidential affects banks on a daily basis. Bank secrecy regimes around the world differ and multi-national banks can find themselves in conflicted positions with a duty to protect information in one jurisdiction and a duty to disclose it in another. This problem has been heightened by the international trend promoting information disclosure in order to combat tax evasion, money laundering and terrorist financing. The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is perhaps the most well-known. At the same time, data protection legislation is proliferating around the world. This book offers a holistic treatment of bank secrecy in major financial jurisdictions around the world, east and west, by jurisdictional experts as well as chapters by subject specialists covering the related areas of confidentiality in its broader privacy context, data protection, conflicts of laws, and exchange of information for the purposes of combatting international crime.

Sandra Booysen is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and executive committee member of the Faculty's Centre for Banking and Finance Law. Her teaching and research interests are in the fields of contract and transactional banking. Dora Neo is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and Director of the Faculty's Centre for Banking and Finance Law. Her teaching and research interests are in the fields of contract, banking law and secured transactions. This project was financed by the Centre for Banking and Finance Law, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore.

'An authoritative and timely volume by leading international scholars on this pressing problem of our time. Containing not only an examination of bank secrecy in the major financial centres of the world but also an incisive discussion of the overarching issues that face policymakers seeking to strike the right balance between bank secrecy and public policy responses to the tax evasion and money laundering it facilitates.' Eva Lomnicka, King's College London 'This is a timely comparative analysis of bank secrecy laws in major financial jurisdictions. The issues dealt with are exceptionally pertinent in the light of the global fight against tax evasion, money laundering and terrorist financing.' Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, Supreme Court of Singapore 'Sandra Booysen and Dora Neo have done a great service in bringing together an excellent collection on an issue central to banking and financial law. The book places the topic in its wider context of data protection and privacy protection. That is coupled with an examination of the international pressures on banks and jurisdictions to curb bank secrecy for reasons of public policy, notably to curb tax avoidance. With its up to date accounts of the laws in the leading financial centres the book will be an essential resource.' Honourable Justice Ross Cranston, Queen's Bench Division, High Court of Justice of England and Wales