There are several markets across the broader emerging market (EM) world that offer yield – India is no different in that sense – but very few match Indian bonds for their high yield and low volatility characteristics.
Indians seem to prefer Asian tax havens and not Switzerland, according to the bilateral foreign holdings data released by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), says an article in the Times of India.
Switzerland has always been infamous for storing most of the black money which is generated by evading tax. However, data suggests otherwise. About 53 percent of the offshore Indian wealth is kept in places within Asia such as Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Bahrain and Malaysia and only 31 percent of the Indians have their wealth stored in Swiss banks.
Nestle India on Wednesday said it has inaugurated the first Nestle Food Safety Institute (NFSI) in the country at its Research and Development (R&D) Centre in Manesar to develop a collaborative approach towards ensuring safe food.
According to the company, NFSI India, an integral part of Nestle R&D Centre India will work closely with the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The Committee on Economy and Royalties of the National Council or CER-N, a key panel of Swiss parliament which rejected on August 15 a proposal seeking to outrightly suspend implementation of the AEOI Switzerland has agreed to adopt with 41 nations including India, will examine the criteria a country would need to satisfy to start getting access to data under the automatic information exchange.
According to the minutes of the last meeting of the committee, the CER-N will continue its examination at a meeting on September 11 of the 41 AEOIs agreed upon by the Federal Council, the highest decision making body of Swiss government.
Switzerland found India’s data security and confidentiality laws “adequate” for entering into an automatic exchange of information pact. The pact will open a continuous access to details about alleged black money hoarders in once-all-secret Swiss banks.
In a notification and fact sheet published in its official gazette for introduction of “automatic exchange of information relating to financial accounts with India”, the Swiss government also cited decisions by other financial centres like Liechtenstein and Bahamas to enter into similar pacts.
OpenFunds, the leading independent, partner-owned, Swiss fund placement agent, has entered into a collaboration with Anarosa Asset Management to distribute Anarosa Funds (Lux) – Gate of India (‘Gate of India Fund’), a Luxembourg SICAV UCITS V investing in Indian equities.
India has approached Switzerland for banking details of at least ten persons and entities suspected to have kept untaxed money in Swiss banks. These include two listed textile companies, while others are associated with an art curator and his carpet export business.
There are also some companies incorporated in tax havens like Panama and British Virgin Islands. Most of the companies and individuals are associated with a carpet export business and an art curator with operations across several countries.
Global banking giant HSBC has disclosed being probed by tax authorities in India, the US, France and Belgium, including against its Swiss and Dubai units, for allegedly abetting tax evasion of four Indians and their families.
Disclosing the "tax-related investigations" in its latest annual report published last week, HSBC further said it has set aside $ 773 million as a provision for various tax- and money laundering-related matters.
