A new law on access to bank information opens the way to allow Chile to exchange banking information under existing tax treaties, moving the Latin American country into a “white list” of nations complying with such standards, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development yesterday.

“The OECD has updated its progress report first issued in conjunction with the April G20 Summit, moving Chile into the category of jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed standard,” the Paris-based organisation said in a statement.

Chile has a network of more than 20 bilateral tax treaties that provide for exchange of information in tax matters. Until now, however, legal restrictions prevented Chile’s tax authorities from obtaining and exchanging certain kinds of bank information in non-criminal tax cases, the statement said.

The new Chilean law comes into force on 1 January next year.

Chile is one of five countries, along with Estonia, Israel, the Russian Federation and Slovenia, that are negotiating to become members of the OECD.