Banking Secrecy In Cyprus: When Can Account Information Be Divulged?

Banking secrecy has been under scrutiny during the past few years, with Swiss and Luxembourg banks under pressure to relax banking secrecy rules. In Cyprus, the Banking Law (66(I)/97, as amended) contains several provisions concerning banking secrecy. Other laws are also applicable, such as the Personal Data Protection Law (138(I)/2001).
According to Section 29(1) of the Banking Law, all employees, directors, managers, chief executives, agents and any other persons who have access to the records of a bank are prohibited - both during their employment or professional relationship with the bank and after the termination thereof - from giving out, divulging, revealing or using for their own benefit any information regarding the account of any individual customer of the bank. Individual customers include both physical and legal persons. The provisions of Section 29 apply to: