Switzerland, the world's largest offshore financial center, has pledged automatically to hand the details of foreign bank accounts to other countries in one of the most significant breakthroughs in the global crackdown on evasion, Financial Times reported.

At a ministerial meeting in Paris on Tuesday, Switzerland agreed to sign up to a new global standard on automatic information exchange, representing a decisive break with its centuries-old commitment to protecting the privacy of banking clients, FT reported.

The move is a big step forward for governments that have mounted a concerted attack on evasion in the wake of the global financial crisis and a series of tax scandals, according to FT.

Swiss co-operation is pivotal to the struggle to prise open taxpayers' hidden accounts because of its long tradition of bank secrecy and its dominant wealth management sector, which has $2.2tn of offshore assets, the report said.

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