The Common Reporting Standard (CRS), developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and approved by the G20 in February 2014, is a global reporting standard for automatic exchange of financial information (AEOI) to combat tax evasion and to improve cross-border tax compliance.

On May 11th 2016, the OECD announced that Lebanon committed to automatically share financial account information with other countries.

On October 27th 2016, the Lebanese Parliament promulgated Lebanese Law Number 55 related to the “Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes”.

On May 12th 2017, the OECD announced that representatives of the Lebanese government signed the CRS Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA), thereby re-confirming Lebanon's commitment to implement the automatic exchange of financial account information and commence exchanges in 2018. Saradar Bank is committed to adhere to the local and international regulations on tax evasion and reporting requirements.

Over 148 countries have committed to CRS. The complete list of countries can be found on the following link: AEOI-commitments CRS requires banks to report annually financial information related to accounts held only by foreign tax resident.

This information consists of: full name, address, date of birth, country of residence and taxpayer identification number (“TIN”), account number, balance or value, the total gross amount of interest and dividends as well as the total gross proceeds from the sale or redemption of financial assets paid or credited to the account.

As a valued customer, we kindly ask you to maintain your relationship manager constantly informed on any update relevant to your personal information.

Should you have any questions about the contents of this letter, please do not hesitate to contact your relationship manager. Please note that this communication is for information only and shall not be considered in any case as tax advice.

However, we kindly advise you to refer to OECD for more information and explanations.