Kenya's cellphone bank gives loans from just a dollar

Google – AFP, Daniel Wesangula (AFP), 28 April 2013

A woman sells beverages near an advertisement for a new cellphone-based

banking initiative in Nairobi on April 27, 2013 (AFP, Tony Karumba)

NAIROBI — Six months ago, Jane Adhiambo Achieng walked into a local Kenyan bank with the hope of getting a loan for her small grocery business.

After providing all the paperwork and after weeks of back and forth between her and bank officials, she was turned down.

"They just told me I don't qualify. My income was too little," said 42-year-old Achieng, who was asking for some $250 -- about half her monthly turnover -- to expand her fruit and vegetable stall in the Kenyan capital.

But in early March, she applied for the same amount through a different source -- and got the money in a matter of minutes.

She credits the Kenyan mobile telephone money application called M-Shwari that lent her the cash for facilitating the growth of her business.

M-Shwari is a new banking platform that allows subscribers of Kenya's biggest mobile network, Safaricom, to operate savings accounts, earn interest on deposits, and borrow money using their mobile phones.

It expands on Kenya's revolutionary use of sending money by mobile phone -- known as M-Pesa, "mobile money" in Swahili -- launched in 2007 and now widely used across the east African nation, where some 70 percent of people have mobile phones.

With a minimum transfer of cash set at five shillings -- around five US cents -- the application revolutionised day-to-day banking for millions left out of the formal system, and is used for transactions ranging from sending money to far-away relatives to paying utility bills or even school fees.

Now it is hoped the new M-Shwari application -- meaning "no hassle" -- can do the same for savers and borrowers.

"We have always been thinking of how to move M-Pesa forward. We knew there was a boundary to be broken and the next frontier was to be reached," said Nzioka Muita, communications manager at Safaricom, which owns both the M-Pesa and M-Shwari systems.

Through this platform, Safaricom says clients can open a bank account, move money in and out of their savings accounts, and access instant micro-credit of a minimum of 100 Kenyan shillings -- slightly more than a dollar -- at any time, all through the mobile phone application.

While loans must be repaid within a month, a single fee of 7.5 percent is charged, a far lower interest rate than high-street banks. Maximum loans depend on how much clients have in their M-Shwari accounts.

The mobile banking application has been so successful that on its first day of operations late last year, more than 70,000 new accounts were opened.

"Up to this point in time, no one in the formal banking sector had thought of implementing such an idea," said Tiberius Barasa, an economic expert with Kenya's Institute of Policy Research and Analysis.

"I am sure that a few bank managers are looking at M-Shwari steadily to see if it is a potential threat to their business."

People wait for a bus near an advertisement for a new cellphone-based

banking initiative in Nairobi on April 27, 2013 (AFP, Tony Karumba)

At least 12 million Kenyans remain outside the formal banking system, according to central bank estimates.

Safaricom controls about 70 percent of the Kenya mobile-phone market, translating to some 19 million subscribers. Of those, some 15 million are already M-Pesa users, a customer base rivalling any banking institution.

On its own, M-Pesa transactions account for more than $50 million (38 million euros) every day in Kenya.

"This is a huge head start for the company," Barasa said.

M-Shwari was launched in partnership with one of Kenya's privately owned banks, the Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA), a deal that could see it boost its slice of the banking sector of east Africa's largest economy.

The family of newly elected President Uhuru Kenyatta hold the major stake in CBA, which provides the banking infrastructure for M-Shwari.

Currently, even with its slightly over $1 billion asset base, it is still some distance away from east Africa's largest banks, such as Equity Bank, Cooperative Bank and the Kenya Commercial Bank.

"In a matter of years, through the sheer volume of transactions that they will be handling on a daily basis, CBA may become a banking powerhouse in the region," Barasa said.

Policy analysts believe that the biggest winners from the M-Shwari service will be those in the market previously thought unbankable, due to its meagre savings and individuals located in remote, inaccessible parts of the country.

"This will greatly change our lives. You can access credit from any part of the country," Abbas Godana, a school teacher in Kenya's remote eastern Tana River district, told AFP.

"You do not have to travel for miles to your bank just to complete some paperwork and wait for the manager to approve the loan."

Godana's village, Cha Mwana Muma, is some 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the nearest shopping centre in which his bank operates a branch -- which, in the impoverished coastal area, where roads are virtually nonexistent, can take a whole day to travel.

In February this year, three months after its launch, transactions on M-Shwari crossed the $35-million mark, with 1.6 million customers having used the service for deposits or loans.

M-Shwari was not the first: telecommunications company Bharti Airtel, an Indian-owned firm, launched a similar product last year known as Kopa Chapaa -- Swahili for "borrow money" -- but the product has not had as much impact.

Smaller micro-credit loan companies have also set up similar schemes.

But "Safaricom has the numbers," Barasa said. "All they need to do is ensure that whatever they come up with resonates with the majority of their subscribers."

Blow for Cameron as China welcomes Hollande

Beijing punishes PM for his meeting with Dalai Lama while French president gets full state visit treatment

The Guardian, Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent, Friday 26 April 2013

The French president, François Hollande, meets his Chinese counterpart,
 Xi Jinping, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China. Photograph:
Pool/Getty Images

David Cameron's mission to change the focus of British foreign policy by boosting trade links suffered a setback after Downing Street was forced to abandon a trip to China as Beijing punished the prime minister for meeting the Dalai Lama.

In a blow to Cameron, who had hoped to hold an annual summit with the Chinese leadership, the French president François Hollande was on Friday feted in Shanghai on a full state visit a few weeks after the prime minister was due to visit China.

Cameron is understood to have abandoned the planned trip after Beijing indicated that he was unlikely to be granted meetings with senior figures. He is now expected to visit in the autumn, two years after his first and only visit as prime minister.

Britain accepts that Beijing is exacting punishment after Cameron met the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, at St Paul's Cathedral last May. The meeting, which was similar to Gordon Brown's discussions with the Dalai Lama at Lambeth Palace in 2008, was designed to minimise offence in China by showing that Britain regards him as a spiritual leader. Downing Street has made clear to Beijing that it accepts Tibet is part of the People's Republic of China.

Government sources said that tentative plans for the prime minister to visit China this month were put on hold before his visit to India in February for the simple reason that the new Chinese leadership only took over in March. Cameron spoke to Li Keqiang, his new Chinese counterpart, after his appointment.

But the Guardian understands from diplomatic sources that a visit was firmly placed in the prime minister's diary for earlier this month. This was abandoned when it became clear that the prime minister would be denied the access usually granted to a G8 leader.

Douglas Alexander, the shadow foreign secretary who has just returned from China, told the Guardian: "David Cameron came to office claiming he would prioritise the UK's diplomatic and trade relationship with China, and yet the real difficulties in relations have now been laid bare. I was in China this week and it is clear that the new Chinese leadership are focused on the French president's visit, along with a large number of French companies looking for business.

"In the past, UK prime ministers have met with the Dalai Lama without the deterioration in relations with China that we are now seeing. For all of their initial boasts and bluster, the UK government has lacked a strategic or a joined-up approach to China since it came to office, and that's now showing."

A No 10 source said: "Of course, as any good diary planner would, we pencil in early on dates when the prime minister could potentially travel overseas without going firm on destinations. We decided several weeks ago that we wanted to visit some European capitals in the time we had earlier this month. When the prime minister and Premier Li Keqiang spoke in March they looked forward to meeting in due course."

Officials said trade with China is still rising and the two countries are on course to achieve £1bn in bilateral trade by 2015. Exports to China grew 13.4% last year.

But the decision to abandon the visit is a personal setback for Cameron, who said after coming to office that he would place trade at the heart of foreign policy, with a particular emphasis on the so-called Bric countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. A visit to India in February fell flat after private complaints that the prime minister appeared to regard the country as a trading opportunity rather than an emerging world power.

Hollande was greeted by Xi Jinping, the new Chinese president, when he arrived in Beijing with his partner Valerie Trierweiler on Thursday. They agreed to hold an annual summit – Cameron's original aspiration when he first visited China in November 2010 – after Hollande said he hoped to build a "multipolar" world. This is the classic French ambition to ensure the US cannot dominate the world in a "unipolar" world.

Cui Hongjian, director of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies, a foreign ministry thinktank, told the South China Morning Post that this message was well received in Beijing. "France sometimes has different ideas from the US. China may co-operate with France."

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Asean Bank Pact Moves Closer

Jakarta Globe, ID/Grace Dwitiya Amianti on 6:49 pm April 27, 2013.

Indonesian banks, many of which are eager to expand abroad, lag their
 Southeast Asian peers with regard to the size of their assets. (Bloomberg
Photo/Dimas Ardian)

Central banks in Southeast Asia inched closer to agreeing on rules allowing commercial banks to expand within the region in a deal that may pave the way for Indonesian lenders such as Bank Mandiri and Bank Negara Indonesia to broaden their horizons.

Officials from central banks at the 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Friday came closer to agreeing on requirements for Southeast Asian banks to do business in other nations in the region. To qualify for the improved market access, banks must reach the status of Qualified Asean Banks.

Requirements to be a QAB will include having headquarters in Asean and meeting certain thresholds on capital adequacy and consolidation, restrictions on large exposures, accounting and transparency.

Mulya Siregar, executive director of banking research and regulation at Bank Indonesia, said the region’s central bankers agreed that a preliminary document about the agreement principles was being finalized.

“This will be complete by the end of this year,” Mulya said, adding that the final decision would rest with Asean leaders. The Asean leaders are scheduled to meet at a summit in October in Brunei.

Mulya said that even though the general requirements for QAB had been laid out, the final decision of a bank expanding  to other country had to be reached by mutual agreement between the bank’s home country and its host country.

A home country’s QAB can enter a host country within the Asean region only if the host country has its own QAB that wishes to enter the former.

“This has to be done simultaneously to ensure a reciprocal treatment,” Mulya said.

Sigit Pramono, chairman of the Indonesia Banking Association (Perbanas), welcomed the advance in reciprocal talks.

Sigit said he was confident that Indonesia banks could meet the requirements to be QABs. But he warned that the country’s bank still lacked the human resources to compete abroad.

“We understand the local market very well, but we still lack, for example, English proficiency,” Sigit said.

State-owned banks Bank Mandiri, Bank Rakyat Indonesia and Bank Negara Indonesia are currently applying to open full branches in Singapore.

Meanwhile, Bank Mandiri is also holding back from opening a full branch in Malaysia due to capital requirement and ATM permits that it deems too restrictive.

Bank Mandiri applied to the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2009. Discussion with the MAS is progressing as part of Bank Indonesia’s push for reciprocity.

The Indonesian central bank is assessing a $6.8 billion bid by Singapore’s DBS Group Holdings to buy control of Bank Danamon Indonesia from Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings. Bank Indonesia Governor Darmin Nasution, whose term ends in May, hinted two weeks ago that DBS is likely to learn the outcome of its bid early next month. He said a decision by the authorities in Singapore on whether to allow greater market access from Indonesian banks is a key factor.

Despite having strong lending growth and high margins, Indonesian banks are behind regional peers in terms of assets.

State lender Bank Mandiri ($66 billion), Bank Rakyat Indonesia ($57 billion) and Bank Negara Indonesia ($35 billion) are at 11th, 13th and 19th place respectively in Southeast Asia, with private lender Bank Central Asia ($46 billion) holding 16th place.

Indonesian Students Kicked Out of School for Having 'Moves Like Jagger'

Jakarta Globe,  April 23, 2013

Screenshot of a YouTube video that depicts students dancing and praying.

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Five high school students in Tolitoli, Central Sulawesi, who recorded themselves dancing to a Maroon 5 song and praying, have been expelled from school and face time in juvenile detention for “tainting religion” after the video surfaced on the Internet.

The five girls were trying to kill time between an hours-long break from classes in the afternoon of March 9 when they made the video.

In a long explanation sent to Detik.com, the headmaster of the school, Muallimin, said he decided to report the students to the police after consulting with the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).

“The students were performing Sholat [prayer] movement with dancing while alternately reciting [the] Koran and turning on ‘One More Night’ music,” Muallimin said, referring to the Maroon 5 song. “The activity was recorded with a mobile phone of one of the students and they forced other student to hold the phone for a duration of five to six minutes.”

The students have been expelled from school and were forbidden from taking last week’s high school national exam, which counts for 60 percent of a student’s final mark to determine whether they will graduate from high school. The expulsion was approved by the FPI Tolitoli branch head, local Youth and Sports Agency, Tolitoli Religious Affairs Ministry and the MUI.

The students were questioned for the first time by police on April 3.

Adj. Comr. Alhajat, the Tolitoli Police chief of detectives, said that the five students were charged with blasphemy against religion under article 156 of the Criminal Code.

“Temporarily we use this law, but there’s a possibility that we’ll charge them with other articles during the process,” Alhajat said, as quoted by JPNN.com.

Tolitoli Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Rudy Mulyanto said that the five have not been detained because they are children, but the legal proceeding would continue.

Minister of Education Muhammad Nuh said that the school had reacted disproportionately to the student’s video.

“Even students in [juvenile detention] were allowed to join national exam,” Nuh said on Tuesday, as quoted by Detik.com.

On March 29, a man told his wife, a teacher at the school, the he saw people watching the video at a market. She later reported the case to the school.

It was not clear who uploaded the video to YouTube.

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"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator, Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience?

'Dancing Cop' Asked to Entertain His Colleagues

Indonesia's Democracy a Success, SBY Says

Jakarta Globe, Robertus Wardi, April 22, 2013

Singapore\'s President Tony Tan, right, confers an honorary doctorate to
Indonesia\'s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at a ceremony in
Singapore on Monday.(Reuters Photo/Edgar Su)

               

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President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says that democracy and economic growth can work hand in hand, despite criticisms saying that the two are not mutually exclusive.

“There was a time decades ago when Indonesians felt that we had to choose between two critical objectives, either a lot of democracy but little economic growth or a lot of economic growth but little political freedom,” Yudhoyono said in Singapore on Monday during a ceremony at  Nanyang Technological University, where he received an honorary doctorate from the university.

Yudhoyono explained that in Indonesia’s case, such stereotypes did not exist, adding that Indonesia’s economy was growing steadily at a rate of 6 percent and public participation in the country’s general and local elections were high.

“We have become a solid democracy with three periodic elections in 1999, 2004 and 2009, while at the same time attaining high economic growth around 6 percent,” Yudhoyono said.

“Thus we have demonstrated that democracy and economic growth can be mutually reinforcing.”

Yudhoyono praised his four-track development strategy ­— pro-growth, pro-job, pro-poor and pro-environment — for the country’s economic development.

“I have also emphasized the need for a development framework based on the principle of ‘sustainable growth with equity,’ where the expanding economic pie does not produce larger inequity but leads to greater equity,” he added.

The president also stressed the central government’s efforts to promote a resilient and vibrant domestic market, which contributes to strong economic growth.

“I am pleased that these strategies have proven effective in keeping the Indonesian economy afloat in the midst of a global economic slowdown,” he said.

Yudhoyono also tackled the global perception that Islam and democracy could not work together. The president said that he believed Indonesia was a good example to highlight how democracy, modernization and Islam worked hand in hand.

“Muslims in Indonesia are very comfortable with democracy and with modernity. Thus, the Indonesian democracy may well offer valuable lessons to Arab Spring countries who are now facing similar challenges,” Yudhoyono said, adding that the country’s Islamic political parties played a significant role to promote democracy.

“Yes, Islamic political parties at some point proliferated, but they have also become staunch defenders of our democracy and our religious freedom.”

During his speech, Yudhoyono also stressed the importance of democracy on keeping the national unity in relation to separatist conflicts in Aceh and Papua, serious violence in Poso and Ambon, and terrorist attacks across the country.

“There was some concern... that democracy would lead to the unraveling of Indonesia. This is because Indonesia is one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world, and some predicted that the next ‘Balkan’ would be in Indonesia,” he said.

“But I am pleased that the strengthening of our democracy has brought about numerous positive impacts.”

Yudhoyono was in Singapore to receive an honorary doctorate from the Nanyang Technological University for his contributions to public service and strong links to the university.

Both of his sons Agus Harimurti and Edhie Baskoro also earned their masters’ degrees from the univeristy.

“I am glad I am following in their footsteps,” Yudhoyono said.

Yudhoyono also met with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday.

G20 urges global community to end banking secrecy

Google – AFP, 19 April 2013

A bank teller counts stacks of US dollars and Chinese 100-yuan notes

at a bank in Hefei, China, January 16, 2011 (AFP/File)

WASHINGTON — The Group of 20 economic powers on Friday urged the global adoption of standards for sharing bank account information in an effort to fight tax evasion and curtail banking secrecy.

The G20 said they "strongly encourage" all countries to sign on to a commitment to the automatic exchange of banking information "which is expected to be the standard," in the group's strongest endorsement yet of a move that takes aim especially at tax havens.

"More needs to be done to address the issues of international tax avoidance and evasion, in particular through tax havens, as well as non-cooperative jurisdictions," the G20 said in a statement on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings.

It urged all countries to accept the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, a framework for the sharing of banking data.

"We welcome progress made towards automatic exchange of information which is expected to be the standard and urge all jurisdictions to move towards exchanging information automatically with their treaty partners, as appropriate."

Offshore Secrets

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Rothschild to pull out of gold market after 200 years

The Telegraph, James Moore, 15 April 2013

The investment bank that has chaired the London meetings setting the world gold price since 1919 is quitting the market.

NM Rothschild will withdraw from all its commodity trading activities, which also include an oil trading business set up less than two years ago, as part of a strategic review.

The move brings to an end nearly 200 years of tradition. NM Rothschild was founded in London in 1810 by Nathan Mayer Rothschild, who helped finance the Duke of Wellington's army in the Napoleonic wars through gold trading.

The company hosts and chairs twice-daily meetings which effectively set the world's gold price. The meetings are held in a plush chamber in the bank's offices at St Swithin's Lane in the City. The other four firms involved are Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Canada's Scotia Bank and Societe Generale.

During the fixes, telephone lines are kept open to trading rooms where dealers are in touch with customers. Potential price movements are unlimited and the fix has been known to take up to two hours, although it is usually over in a matter of minutes.

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The chairmanship of the meetings is likely to be rotated between the four remaining banks in future. Gold industry sources also predicted that the meetings would be replaced by telephone fixing.

NM Rothschild's withdrawal from the gold market is being seen as one of the first major strategic moves by Baron David de Rothschild.

He set in train the strategic review after taking control of the bank from his cousin, Sir Evelyn de Rothschild. Sir Evelyn has been a champion of Rothschild's gold trading although a spokesman for the bank said he understood that Sir Evelyn supported the decision.

The bank's finance director Andrew Didham, who conducted the review, said commodities now accounted for just 2.2pc of Rothschild's operating income from 8.8pc in 1999.

"There is always a sadness that a bit of history is over, but we decided that the commodities business did not really fit with our other businesses," he said.

While the gold price has surged, mining companies have become less interested in hedging and trading volumes have fallen. Observers also said rival banks tended to have better links with the hedge which now make up a sizeable proportion of the market.

Simon Weeks, chairman of the London Bullion Market Association, said: "It is very sad to lose such a long-established member of the gold market but we have lost participants before, such as Credit Suisse, and the market will continue."

Rothschild has yet to decide whether to sell or close its commodities business, which employs 40 people. The company hired a number of senior traders when it set up its oil business in 2003. The price of gold fell by $7 to $402 an ounce yesterday.

Nathaniel Rothschild was hopeful of  regaining control
of Bumi, a company he helped found

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Matthew message (Channelled by Suzanne Ward, Feb 18, 2013)

"... The Rothschild faction of the Illuminati, which governed its empire from London and the Vatican, lost its media foothold along with its other powers in that part of the world. A section of the Illuminati’s Rockefeller faction, headquartered in Washington, DC, and New York City, still has influence on major media in the US as well as on Wall Street; and their lingering foothold in Congress is evident in the intransigence that has stagnated progress. ."

CDB governor Chen Yuan to set up BRICS Development Bank

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-04-18

Chen Yuan. (Photo/CNS)

Chen Yuan, governor of the state-owned China Development Bank and the son of late Communist Party elder Chen Yun, is set to lead China's role in the establishment of the BRICS Development Bank, reports our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily.

According to various internal sources at CDB, one of China's three policy-making banks, the 68-year-old Chen will resign from his role as bank governor to devote himself to setting up the BRICS Development Bank, agreed upon by the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa their summit in Durban, South Africa in March. Hu Huaibang, the 57-year-old chairman of Bank of Communications, has been widely tipped as a candidate to take over Chen's role.

Chen graduated with a master's degree in industrial economics from the graduate school of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and despite his low-key personality he is regarded as a strong choice to help China achieve its objectives with the BRICS Development Bank. He was in the first group of research students during the early years of the reform and opening up policy and he has been credited with creating the blueprint for Beijing's financial sector.

Formerly the executive deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, the nation's central bank, Chen was parachuted into the role of governor at China Development Bank in 1998, when poor management and a corrupt banking culture had brought the bank to the brink of collapse with more than 30% of its assets tied up in bad debt.

Chen has since re-established the foundations of the bank and instituted landmark reforms in the loan approval process, reducing bad debts and returning the bank to profitability.

As at the end of 2012, the bank's total assets reached 7.37 trillion yuan (US$1.2 trillion), with a nonperforming loan ratio of just 0.3%.　

References:

Chen Yuan　　陳元

Chen Yun　　陳雲

Hu Haibang　　 胡懷邦

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Major EU countries to tackle tax havens

Deutsche Welle, 14 April 2013

Six major EU countries are set to increase the pressure on tax havens. At their meeting in Dublin, finance ministers announced an initiative against tax fraud and creative tax avoidance inspired by the US.

Pressure is growing on so-called tax havens, situated in the Caribbean and in Europe. At the meeting of European Union finance ministers in Dublin, six major EU member states, France, Britain, Italy, Poland, Spain and Germany presented a new initiative against tax evasion and tax avoidance.

In the future, the six countries plan to automatically exchange all relevant data on capital income with each other. That will enable fiscal authorities to collect taxes more easily from taxpayers who invest money in the EU.

The sudden momentum came from across the Atlantic, according to British Finance Minister George Osborne, who was responding to a reporter's question in Dublin.

"We actually have a new international standard emerging," he said. "With the countries represented here taking it up and using it as the basis of a multilateral European system, we're turning what was a bilateral US agreement into something approaching a global standard, which we want to obviously see promoted in Europe, but also more widely than that."

Osborne's statement referred to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), passed in the US in 2010, which is applied by an increasing number of countries worldwide in bilateral agreements with the US – among them Germany and Luxembourg. Under FATCA, those who don't pass on relevant data of potential American tax evaders to the US authorities are consequentially banned from doing business in the US. And since the US is the world's most important financial center, most countries and their banks have no choice but to accept FATCA.

 Austrian Finance Minister Maria
Fekter was on the defensive

Austria putting up resistance

Even Switzerland, famous for its banking secrecy, has adopted FATCA in a bilateral agreement with the US. But there has been criticism, with the Swiss daily newspaper the Neue Zürcher Zeitung speaking of a "tax diktat" by the big power, the United States.

The largest EU countries now want to adopt automatic data exchange as a standard for Europe. The last country to put up open resistance was Austria. In Dublin, Finance Minister Maria Fekter of the conservative party ÖVP called it an "attack on banking secrecy."

Banking secrecy has deep traditional roots in Austria and is anchored in the constitution. The proposed data exchange, she criticized, would lead to a "graveyard of data." "It's better to tax at the source," said Fekter. Austria does just that, deducting a tax at the source on returns on interest – in an anonymous way.

Luxembourg's Finance Minister Luc Frieden also criticized the initiative brought forward by the big six. "They want the small EU countries to just follow suit," Frieden said. Nevertheless, on Saturday (13.04.2013), three medium-sized EU member states, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Romania, also decided to join the initiative.

But Austria looks set to give in to pressure from the US, and seems likely to begin negotiations on adopting FATCA. Austria will try and push for an agreement similar to the one Switzerland has adopted, one which doesn't impose an automatic data exchange, so that the anonymity of bank depositors remains somewhat protected.

Brits put pressure on Cayman Islands

In Dublin, Britain's finance minister announced that the new transparency will also apply to tax havens in Britain's sphere of influence.

"First of all the Crown dependencies, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and so on: we have in the past couple of weeks concluded automatic exchanges of information, which are based on the US model, based on the model that we are adopting amongst ourselves here," said Osborne.

"With the overseas territories, like the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, we are in advanced stages of discussions. But I think they are in no doubt about what we expect of them."

The Cayman Islands - beautiful beaches
and an attractive tax system

People who want to evade taxes, Osborne added, should know that the hiding places are becoming few and far between.

Limit creative tax avoidance

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble stressed that the initiative of the six major EU countries isn't limited on returns on interest. It will also be applied to all forms of capital income by companies. In the future, systems that encourage creative tax avoidance, currently legal and present in many EU member states such as Luxembourg and Ireland, will also come under scrutiny.

"When the International Monetary Fund has its spring meeting in Washington next week, we will continue our efforts on a global level," he said. "We want to fight tax evasion through data exchange and we want to fight tax avoidance that happens when someone uses different tax systems or even tax havens. I believe a global movement is emerging, that will find the support of all Europeans."

But not all EU member states agree. Luxembourg benefits from direct investment by US companies, for example, which settle in the Grand Duchy because they benefit from the limited tax burden there, a prime example being online retailer Amazon.

'Surge in appetite' for stricter rules

At the moment, the EU member states are in competition with each other because of such legal tax avoidance systems. Countries like Cyprus were a popular destination for companies to register low-taxed subsidiaries, so-called letterbox companies. In the future, that system should lose its appeal, said Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski in Dublin.

Schäuble said the IMF will continue
the efforts on a global level

Rostowski explained that Poland has tried to attract big international companies for many years. He wants the multinationals to tax the profits where they make them: in Poland. "As a host country we're always concerned about a reduction of the base for tax. We can only fight tax avoidance in cooperation with other states," he said.

EU Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta has urged member states to finally adopt the EU's Savings Directive that was negotiated in 2008. In Dublin, he said he could now see that happening over the coming weeks. But he warned that all questions concerning tax policy require a unanimous vote by all member states.

"The surge in the appetite of member states for progress and action in the fight against evasion is extremely welcome," said Semeta, seemingly surprised by the initiative launched by the six big countries. And yet, it's still up to the member states themselves to determine their tax systems and their tax rates.

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