Associate Professor Sandra BOOYSEN and Associate Professor Dora NEO

A symposium was held at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore from 4 to 5 December 2014

Many jurisdictions recognise that customer information held by banks should be protected from disclosure to some extent. It is also accepted that the right to confidentiality of customer information cannot be absolute. The challenge to every legal system is therefore to find where the balance should lie. Recent events and developments have put this question under the spotlight. This project examined:
– the rationale of bank secrecy and the appropriate level of protection accorded to it;
– the growing tension between bank secrecy and the pressures on countries to combat international terrorism, money laundering and tax evasion; and
– how bank secrecy is being impacted by advances in technology and the growth in data protection laws around the world.

Symposium participants were drawn from a variety of jurisdictions around the world, including China, Singapore, Switzerland, the UK and the US.