India has slipped to 88th place in terms of money parked by its citizens with Swiss banks, while the UK remains on the top.
Also, the money officially held by Indians with banks in Switzerland now accounts for a meagre 0.04 per cent of the total funds kept by all foreign clients in the Swiss banking system, as per an analysis of the latest figures compiled by the Swiss National Bank as on 2016-end.
India was placed at 75th position in 2015 and at 61st in the year before that, though it used to be among top-50 countries in terms of holdings in Swiss banks till 2007. The latest data from Zurich-based SNB comes ahead of a new framework for automatic exchange of information between Switzerland and India. The funds, described by SNB as ‘liabilities’ of Swiss banks or ‘amounts due to’ their clients, are the official figures disclosed by the Swiss authorities and do not indicate to the quantum of the much-debated ‘black money’ held by Indians in the safe havens of Switzerland.