For the fifth time since last December, Switzerland's Federal Tax Administration has published a list of banks banks, fiduciary firms and insurance companies that it says are on notice to provide it with information on their U.S. clients, in order that they are able to comply with the American anti-tax evasion law known as FATCA. 

Twelve Swiss banks and one fiduciary firm have been formally notified by the Swiss government that the U.S. is expecting them to provide data on certain of their American account-holders, as required by FATCA.

The U.S. has overtaken Switzerland in the London-based Tax Justice Network's "Financial Secrecy Index", published today, but the top spot this year has been awarded to the Cayman Islands.

Switzerland's Federal Council has announced that it has "decided to immediately suspend the automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) with Bulgaria" due to what it called "a problem with the country's data security" – a reference to the revelation earlier this year that the personal data of some 5 million Bulgarian and foreign taxpayers had been hacked from the Bulgarian National Revenue Agency.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced that a long-in-the-works tax treaty with Switzerland has at last been signed and has entered into force, alongside a tax deal with Luxembourg.

U.S. financial services providers that provide in-bound financial services on a cross-border basis from outside of Switzerland are being urged to take notice of new regulations that are expected to take effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

UBS, the Zurich-based banking group, is to return to the business of looking after high-net-worth Americans, including expats, almost a decade after it was fined US$780m by the Justice Department for helping wealthy U.S. clients to evade tax.