New Delhi: Finance Piyush Goyal on Tuesday claimed that Indian deposits in Swiss banks fell by up to 34.5 percent in the year 2017 and by up to 80 percent since the Narendra Modi government came to power at the center in 2014. He cited data from the global body of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

He made his remark in Parliament during the ongoing Monsoon Session rebutting reports last month, which quoted the Swiss National Bank said that in its annual report the Indian deposits had risen by up to 50 percent in 2017. Swiss National Bank is the country’s central bank.

He was addressing the Rajya Sabha during question hour and said that he had discussed the issue with Swiss authorities, who replied in writing that media reports “have not taken account of the way the (SNB) figures have to be interpreted.”

PTI had last month reported SNB data that the money parked by Indian’s in Swiss banks rose up to CHF 1.01 billion (Rs. 7,000 crores) in 2017 after falling for three consecutive years.

“The Swiss Authorities say that the figures published by the Swiss National Bank are regularly mentioned by the Indian media as a reliable indicator of the number of assets held with Swiss financial institutions in respect of Indian citizens. They clarify how this is wrong. They say more often than not, the media reports have not taken into account the way the figures have to be interpreted which has resulted in misleading headlines and analysis. This is (the Swiss) government response,” he said.

According to what Mr. Goyal said that the Swiss authorities made it a bit clear that the more reliable data source for deposits held in Switzerland is the Locational Banking Statistics (LBS) of Bank of International Settlements.

LBS has the authority to measure international banking activity from a residence perspective and focusses on the location of the banking office and captures around 95 percent of all cross-border banking activity.

The SNB data includes non-deposit liabilities, the business of Swiss branches located in India, fiduciary liability, and inter-bank transactions. BIS data gives details of non-bank loans and deposits have fallen by up to 34.5 percent in the year 2017 to USD 524 million when compared to USD 800 million in 2016, he said and vowed to continue the crackdown against black money practices.

“Further, there has been a significant reduction in Swiss non-bank loans and deposits of Indians by 80.2 percent between 2013 and 2017,” he said adding the figure in 2013 was USD 2.6 billion which came down to USD 2.3 billion in 2014 and USD 1.4 billion 2015.

“Moreover, it is frequently assumed that any assets held by Indians are undeclared,” he said. “So if you want to know the deposits of Indian residents in Switzerland, the correct data source is called locational banking statistics.”

According to the minister, that India had commenced the Automatic Exchange of Information based on Common Reporting Standard with many countries that enabled it to receive crucial financial account information of Indian residents.

“This will also be useful in bringing the unaccounted income and assets to tax,” he said.

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