Help with keeping track of relevant information around the Common Reporting Standard comes from Switzerland-based SIX.

Switzerland-headquartered SIX Financial Information has launched a data service to help wealth management professionals deal with requirements under the global regime for exchanging information known as the Common Reporting Standard. The CRS is being phased in for financial institutions from June this year.

The SIX CRS/AEoI service identifies CRS-reportable client income by alerting users to what are considered to be relevant corporate actions, a process that removes the chore of screening through data and lightens the burden of annual reporting. The service is commercially available from April, with retrospective data available from 1 January 2017, SIX said in a statement yesterday. 

The CRS works by requiring the OECD’s member countries – mainly rich industrialised nations – to automatically exchange information about individuals with accounts outside their tax residence, as part of an attempt to stamp out tax evaders. The standard took effect in two waves, with the first cohort of countries, such as Germany, France and the UK, swapping information for the first time in 2017.  A further 47 jurisdictions in wave two are committed to start exchanges in 2018, including Switzerland, Australia and Canada. (The US is not included in the CRS; the country is already enforcing its extra-territorial tax regime via the FATCA Act legislation, signed into law in 2010.)

“CRS requires institutions to have detailed knowledge of the instruments and transactions that trigger reporting obligations. By making it easier for our clients to implement compliance processes, this new offering is an example of how we are using our expertise in corporate actions and regulatory data as the basis for innovative services that solve new industry challenges,” Robert Jeanbart, divisional chief executive of SIX Financial Information, said.

An association representing private banks in Switzerland recently voiced concerns about the safeguarding of exchanged data under CRS and other pacts. (See article here.)