In a bold move, Luxembourg is planning to lift the sacrosanct bank secrecy rules for citizens of the European Union who have savings in their country's banks. This is clearly a sharp shift in policy direction that is expected to take effect by 2015.
This makes Luxembourg at par with all other nations in the EU who share information on banks and other financial details. Austria is the last remaining holdout but the inclusion of Luxembourg clearly adds pressure on Vienna to join the bandwagon.
The Luxembourg decision follows intense lobbying from the European Commission, led by Germany. They pleaded their case through the current investigation involving the former French budget minister on charges of fraud after his admission of having a secret Swiss bank account.
According to Luxembourg Prime Minister, in his state of the nation address, "We can, without great damage, introduce automatic exchange of information as of January 1, 2015. We are following a global movement ... we are not caving in to German pressure."
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