India requests bank details of those named in SwissLeaks

The names of around 130,000 HSBC Switzerland clients were handed over by former IT employee Hervé Falciani to foreign governments like France Keystone / Martial Trezzini

Swiss authorities have received requests for information concerning Swiss bank accounts of four Indians named in the SwissLeaks investigation involving the HSBC private bank in Geneva. 

Among those mentioned by the Swiss Federal Tax Administration on Tuesday include Kuldip Singh DhingraExternal link of Berger Paints, one of India’s 40 richest individuals with a shared net worth of $4.6 billion (CHF4.6 billion) according to ForbesExternal link. SwissLeaks showed that he held over $4 million at the bank in 2007 along with his brother Gurbachan Singh Dhingra. 

Shaunak Jitendra ParikhExternal link, who was listed at holding over $30 million, was also flagged up. SwissLeaks put him in sixth place among IndiansExternal link stashing money with HSBC Geneva ahead of India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani ($26 million) and his brother Anil Ambani ($26 million). 

Also flagged by the Swiss authorities was Milan Kavinchandra ParikhExternal link of diamond processing company Mahendra Brothers and Anil BhardwajExternal link who was estimated to hold $1.4 million at HSBC Geneva in 2007. 

According to standard procedure, the four Indians named have ten days to name a Swiss representative to receive the notifications. They can appeal the final decision of the Swiss Federal Tax Administration regarding whether to share information on financial transactions. 

The names of around 130,000 HSBC Switzerland clients were handed over by former IT employee Hervé Falciani to foreign governments like France. A journalistic investigation later on revealed the names to the public in 2015 as part of a dossier called SwissLeaks.

Automatic exchange 

Request for banking information of this kind will soon become a thing of the past. In 2017, the ‘Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters’ came into effect in Switzerland. Now countries with which Switzerland has signed agreements – including India – will no longer need to request information on their citizens’ Swiss bank accounts. The data will be handed over automatically once a year. However, this data can only be used for tax collection efforts and cannot be made public.   

Switzerland started collecting such data from 2017 onwards and began sharing it with select countries (mostly European ones) from 2018. India is among another batch of countries that will have to wait until 2019 for the first data exchange.