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

An insight into bank secrecy in major jurisdictions, complemented by chapters on privacy, data protection, conflict of laws and exchange of information.

Sandra Booysen (Edited by), Dora Neo (Edited by)

9781107145146, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 May 2017

432 pages
23.6 x 16 x 3 cm, 0.78 kg

'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

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.

Foreword
Part I. Bank Secrecy in Context: 1. A conceptual overview of bank secrecy Dora Neo
2. Bankers' duties and data privacy principles: global trends, and Asia-Pacific comparisons Graham Greenleaf and Alan Tyree
3. Bank secrecy and the variable intensity of the conflict of laws Chris Hare
4. The international pressures on banks to disclose information Chizu Nakajima
5. International developments in exchange of tax information Martha O'Brien
Part II. Bank Secrecy in Financial Centres around the World: 6. China Wang Wei
7. Germany, with references to the EU Christian Hofmann
8. Hong Kong Stefan Gannon
9. Japan Reiko Omachi
10. Singapore Sandra Booysen
11. Switzerland Peter Nobel and Beat Braendli
12. United Kingdom Keith Stanton
13. United States of America Lissa Broome
14. Conclusion Sandra Booysen.

Subject Areas: Financial law [LNP], Banking [KFFK], Finance [KFF]