Compliance & Regulation

Switzerland expects automatic exchange with Hong Kong & Singapore by late 2019

The Swiss federal government has recommended to its Parliament that it green lights the automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) with Singapore and Hong Kong starting from autumn 2019.

The Swiss federal government has recommended to its Parliament that it green lights the automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) with Singapore and Hong Kong starting from autumn 2019.

According to a media release, in October 2017, the Federal Council decided to apply the agreements with Singapore and Hong Kong provisionally as of January 1, 2018, and to exchange account information with these countries for the first time in autumn 2019. 

This was the only way to ensure that the schedule could be met, the government said.

With the current proposal, the Federal Council is now requesting Parliament's authorisation to ratify the two agreements. 

At the same time, the Federal Council is proposing the option of implementing the AEOI with Singapore and Hong Kong based on the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement; MCAA). 

This solution takes account of the latest developments in Singapore and Hong Kong and would allow the implementation of the AEOI on a multilateral basis, the statement said.

Switzerland has already agreed to implement AEOI with 38 jurisdictions, and in June 2017, it extended it to a further 41 jurisdictions by 2019, including most G20 and OECD members.