No claimants for Rs 300 cr in six India-linked Swiss a/cs

Zurich/New Delhi, July 15

It is the third year since Swiss banks made public a list of accounts lying dormant without any trace of owners and no claimant has come forward for those with Indian links, even as a political slugfest continues in India over alleged black money parked there.

The list of all such accounts—of Swiss citizens and foreigners, including from India—was first published by the Switzerland Banking Ombudsman in December 2015 and it keeps getting updated as and when an account is declared dormant. This is to allow real owners of the accounts or their legal heirs to stake a claim with necessary proof.

The details get deleted from the list when a successful claim is made and this was the case for as many as 40 accounts and two safe deposit boxes in the year 2017 itself, as per the latest information shared by the Ombudsman.

However, the list of over 3,500 such accounts continues to have at least six with links to India since December 2015, as no successful claimant has come forward for them. In terms of the dormant accounts, at least three individuals from India and three others of Indian origin—but resident of other countries—continue to figure on the list of unclaimed bank accounts made public by Switzerland since December 2015.

While specific figure for India-linked dormant accounts is not known, the total holding in all such accounts is estimated at about 44 million Swiss franc (about Rs 300 crore).

Of the six with Indian links, place of residence of three has been mentioned as India, while it is Paris (France) for one and London for another (see box). The place of residence for the sixth person was not disclosed. All these accounts were added to the public list in December 2015 and would remain there till December 2020, unless a successful claim is made for the money.  The list is aimed at giving their owners or their legal heirs a chance to claim the funds in these accounts. Only those accounts form part of the list which have got at least 500 Swiss francs and have remained unclaimed for at least 60 years.

The list contains a large number of people from Switzerland itself, as also from Germany, France, the UK, the US, Turkey, Austria and other countries. If no legitimate party claims the assets that have been published within a year of publication, the banks can transfer the assets to the government. The claim deadline for potential legitimate claimants is five years if the assets in question have been dormant since at least 1954. — PTI

3,500 Dormant accounts of foreign clients

Bowing to global pressure following allegations of Swiss banks turning into safe havens for tax evasion, Swiss ombudsman in Dec 2015 released list of over 3,500 dormant accounts

50 pc jump in funds parked by Indians with Swiss banks in 2017 alone

Rs 7,000 cr or CHF 1.01 billion total funds by 2017, as per data released by the Swiss National Bank 

0.07 pc of the total funds kept by foreign clients in various Swiss banks are held by Indians

Six Indians with dormant a/cs*

1,2 Pierre Vachek and Bernet Rosmarie from ‘Bombay’, the earlier name of Mumbai

3 Bahadur Chandra Singh from Dehradun in Uttarakhand

4 Dr Mohan Lal from Paris 

5 Suchah Yogesch Prabhudas from London

6 Kishore Lall; his place of residence not disclosed

(* 3 are Indians, rest Indian-origin) 

India has info-sharing pact 

• Switzerland was perceived among safest havens for financial assets before global crackdown on tax evasion 
• It was then that Switzerland framed laws for cooperation with several countries to ensure stricter clampdown on money laundering and tax frauds
• India is one of the countries with which Switzerland has inked an automatic exchange of information pact on financial matters