Swiss banks to ease secrecy laws amid blitz on tax havens

The Swiss government said it will co-operate with international investigations into tax evasion after years of resisting calls to be more open.

Austria and Luxembourg also gave concessions on bank secrecy after talks with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which sets rules on tax and bank data sharing.

It followed similar agreements yesterday with Andorra and Liechtenstein and came as finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 nations prepared this afternoon for their weekend summit in Sussex to discuss a roadmap to tackle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Offshore tax evasion is expected to be discussed at the meeting and at the G20 summit next month.

The dramatic moves by the five countries, and Switzerland in particular, piled pressure on the UK Government to reform its tax system.

Britain is reckoned to be one of the biggest tax havens in the world thanks to the tax relief it gives to non-doms who have flocked to London to protect their wealth.

The OECD welcomed today's move but campaigners called for further action.

An estimated £8 trillion is thought to be stored in offshore accounts costing countries billions of pounds in taxes a year.

The OECD has a blacklist of countries that do not comply with its standards.

It contains only Liechtenstein, Andorra and Monaco. But France and Germany, in particular, want others, including Switzerland, to be added.

The Swiss government will be hoping today's concessions will quell much of the anger ahead of the G20 meeting.

Switzerland said it would waive confidentiality of account holders if government investigators have "concrete information" including the name of the bank and the assets involved in alleged wrongdoing.

This is the first time Switzerland has agreed to sign up to the OECD rules having previously argued it would compromise its long-standing banking secrecy rules.

It remains to be seen what impact it will have on UBS and its talks with the US authorities.

US officials are investigating 52,000 UBS account holders over suspected tax evasion but the bank has so far only provided details of 300 American customers.