4 Indians on list of unclaimed, dormant a/cs in Swiss banks

At least four Indians, including one born over 100 years ago, figured in a list of 2,600 alleged owners of unclaimed or dormant bank accounts made public by Switzerland on Wednesday. The list also contains 80 safe deposit boxes.

Each of these accounts have at least 500 Swiss francs and been untouched for at least 60 years. This is the first time Switzerland has published such a list, aimed at giving owners or heirs a chance to claim the funds in these accounts.

The four Indians are a Pierre Vachek, whose residence is mentioned as 'Bombay', Bahadur Chandra Singh from Dehradun, Dr Mohan Lal from Paris and Kishore Lall. Vachek’s date of birth has been mentioned as January 1, 1908.

The total holding in these accounts is estimated at about 44 million SFr (Rs 300 crore) but the figure for Indian account holders was not disclosed.

The relatives and heirs of these persons will have up to five years to present claims for these accounts, the Swiss Banking Ombudsman and the Swiss Bankers Association (SBA) said.

Switzerland has already started making public the names of Indians and others with bank accounts under a tax scanner, with sufficient proof as required for the reason.

The country is in the process of amending its laws to ease the way for foreign governments to get details of undisclosed money based on information from ‘stolen data’, the government had informed Parliament on Tuesday.

Till October 2014, Switzerland had not provided the information requested by India in respect of the list of account holders in HSBC Bank, Geneva (the names had been apparently stolen and made public), stating this was stolen data and by its domestic laws, such information could not be provided.

The new list contains a large number of people from Switzerland itself, as also from Germany, France, the UK, the US, Turkey, Austria and other countries. This follows a new law in Switzerland that mandates publication of the names of the owners of very old and dormant customer relationships, on an annual basis starting 2015.

The claim deadline for potential legitimate claimants is five years if the assets in question have been dormant since at least 1954.