Swiss banks among the world's most secretive
The Swiss financial sector continues to be one of the least transparent in the world coming in at third place in the 2020 Financial Secrecy Index released by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Tax Justice Network (TJN).
Two other European countries, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, are also ranked among the top 10 least transparent nations on the TJN's list, which rates 133 nations based on their financial transparency.
Switzerland is the world's biggest centre for managing offshore wealth, with a quarter of global assets invested here.
Despite being in the third place, Switzerland reduced its risk of being an offshore haven for tax cheats by 12%, "finally improving enough to move off the top of the index", TJN said.
This improvement is mainly due to Switzerland extending its international network for the automatic exchange of customer information to more than 100 countries.
Also, there was a reduction in the volume of financial activity conducted in the country by non-residents.
The network started out in the UK but has grown to be a global organization pushing for tax justice. The index is a biennial report and was published for the sixth time.
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