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

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.

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.