The troubled central American republic of Panama is now sharing data from its banks about their HNW customers' accounts with a plethora of foreign countries including Germany, Holland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and the UK, with Australia and France to come.

International Investment quotes Martin Barcela, the deputy head of the Directorate General of Revenues’ (DGI) Information Exchange Section, as saying: “Today Panama is taken into account in the context of transparent nations, which has an impact at the economic level, but this does not end the issue, there are still more elements to fulfil.” David Hidalgo, the head of Panama's tax collection unit, added that the Panamanian Government's aim in facilitating this exchange of information is "so as not to be on a blacklist of tax havens."

The website also reports that in this instance 331 Panamanian financial firms have made about 660 disclosures as part of the country's effort to obey the Common Reporting Standard, which dictates the automatic sharing of account information internationally.

This comes only days after the Swiss Federal Tax Administration announced that the Alpine country had exchanged information about 2 million financial accounts with other countries for the first time.

This first instance of the automatic exchange of information (AEOI) has seen information going to various countries of the EU and also Canada, Guernsey, Iceland, Isle of Man, Japan, Jersey, Norway and South Korea. The transmission of data happened at the end of last month. Cyprus and Romania were excluded temporarily as they had not yet obeyed some international standards regarding confidentiality and data security. Transmission of data to Australia (another 'partner state') and France has been delayed, as these states are having trouble sending data to Switzerland for technical reasons. Similarly, the FTA has not yet received data from Croatia, Estonia and Poland. The other 'partner states' have transmitted data to the FTA.

About 7,000 reporting financial institutions (banks, trusts, insurers, etc.) are registered with the FTA and have collected the data and transferred it there. The FTA has sent information on around 2 million financial accounts to Switzerland's 'partner states' and has received information about millions of accounts (precise figure unknown) from them. The FTA is not legally empowered to publicise any information about the amount of financial assets.

The FTA has said: "Identification, account and financial information is exchanged, including name, address, state of residence and tax identification number, as well as information concerning the reporting financial institution, account balance and capital income.

"The exchanged information allows the cantonal tax authorities to verify whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts abroad in their tax returns.

"The AEOI will now take place on a yearly basis. In 2019, data from 2018 will be exchanged with around 80 partner states, provided these meet the requirements on confidentiality and data security. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes reviews the participating states' implementation of the AEOI."

The CRS, whose full title is the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information, developed by the OECD with G20 countries, represents the international consensus on AEOI for tax purposes, on a reciprocal basis.