A leading Swiss banker told his Lebanese counterparts that the era of banking secrecy in the world is coming to an end, suggesting that the lenders have to prepare their clients for this inevitable outcome.

“The banks that attract tax evaders can no longer continue in this pattern because the era of banking secrecy is over and transparency era has begun,” Jacque de Saussure, the chairman of Bank of Pictet & Cie , told a group of Lebanese bankers during a lecture on the Future of Swiss Banking at the Association of Banks in Lebanon on Friday March 20.

In July 2014, Lebanon adopted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), a United States federal law that requires Americans who live outside the United States, to report their financial accounts held outside of the United States, and requires foreign financial institutions to report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) about their U.S. clients. 

The European Union and other developed countries are also expected to ask for the full disclosure of the bank accounts of all their citizens in every part of the world to combat tax evasion.

After giving a brief history of Swiss banks and banking secrecy in his country, de Saussure said Swiss banks have benefitted from the flow of funds and the relative ease to open accounts offshore. But de Saussure noted that the U.S. authorities became more alert following the Swiss bank UBS scandal in 2009.

“Following this scandal, the U.S. authorities issued a tax legislation better known as FATCA. Most countries around the world are expected to make similar moves, especially the European Union and Australia,” he added.

De Saussure stressed that the fight against tax evasion is as serious as the fight against money laundering. He called on the Lebanese bankers to benefit from the Swiss experience.

Some bankers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they have rejected a number of requests by Lebanese-American citizens to open accounts in millions of dollars.

They added that banks are not willing to take any risk by accepting accounts from tax dodgers.

Most Lebanese bankers admit that other countries will follow the suit of the United States in terms of tax disclosure.

But they emphasize that banks are ready to deal with any law passed by the parliament in the future.

There are no official statistics on the number of Lebanese holding dual citizenship but there is a wide believe that the number is quite significant.

ABL has recently called on Parliament to ratify three draft laws to combat money laundering that the Cabinet already approved three years ago. 

It also called for approving Lebanon’s adherence to the United Nations’ 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism.

The first draft law allows the introduction of amendments to anti-money laundering Law 318, the second draft law regulates the transfer of funds across borders and the third one is about the exchange of tax information.