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The amount of Bangladesh-linked funds in the banks of Switzerland jumped by 28 per cent last year after a decline a year ago, according to the latest Swiss Bank data.
In 2017, deposits held by Bangladeshis declined by 27 per cent.
Swiss National Bank (SNB) released its annual report titled ‘Banks in Switzerland 2018’ on Thursday, which showed that the money held by the Bangladeshi nationals and entities stood at CHF (Swiss Franc) 622.55 million in the past year, which was CHF 483.25 million in 2017.
After converting to local currency, it showed that the Bangladesh-linked money in the Swiss banking system stood at Tk 53.54 billion in 2018. The amount was Tk 41.56 billion in 2017.
The figure includes the amount deposited through fiduciaries or wealth managers. Of these, in 2018, BD-linked money worth some CHF 4.83 million (Tk 415.38 million) was deposited through the fiduciaries, which was CHF 1.94 (Tk 166.84 million) in 2017.
The funds are described by SNB as ‘liabilities’ of the Swiss banks or ‘amounts due’ to their clients.
The SNB statistics, however, did not say anything about the nature of the money – stashed or black money or illegally-transferred wealth.
Popular perception is that a major portion of the money deposited in the Swiss banks is either stashed from different countries or is black money.
Swiss banking system generally ensures full confidentiality of the depositors. As a result, the country has become one of the largest tax havens in the world.
But for the last few years, there has been a big pressure on the Swiss government to tighten the banking regulation and share depositors’ information with other governments.
The official statistics released by SNB also does not include the money that any Bangladesh-linked client of the Swiss banks might have deposited and kept in the name of shadow entities or shell companies.
According to the latest statistics, Bangladesh-linked money in the Swiss banks included CHF 597.50 million (Tk 51.38 billion) deposited through other banks and CHF 20.21 million (Tk 1.73 billion) in the form of customer deposits at the end of 2018.
Meanwhile, the total funds, held by all foreign clients of the Swiss banks, declined by around 5.78 per cent to CHF 1.38 trillion in the past year from 1.46 trillion in 2017.
The Indians’ money in the Swiss banks dropped to 939.54 million (excluding fiduciary funds) last year, which was CHF 999.01 million in 2017.
At the same time, Pakistanis’ money also declined sharply to CHF 724.15 million in 2018, which was CHF 1.10 billion in the previous year.
Indian and Pakistani money deposited through fiduciaries stood at CHF 15.15 million and CHF 20.01 million respectively.
source(FE)