The assumption that Swiss bank secrecy is headed for the history books might be somewhat premature.

Swiss bank secrecy laws dating in modern form to 1934 are so widely regarded as zombie, “walking dead” instruments that it sometimes comes as a shock to point out that they are still very much alive, and on the Swiss statute book.

That reality was reasserted this week when a meeting of the Federal Council in the Swiss capital of Bern decided, at least for now, to withdraw a draft that would have relaxed bank secrecy laws.

The aim of the reform to the laws on fiscal offences was to stop tax evaders hiding behind the shield of banking secrecy. It would have enabled tax authorities to demand information from banks on account holders strongly suspected of tax evasion.

Part of the reason for the change of plan was criticism from the cantons because they think they have been at a disadvantage since banking secrecy for foreign clients effectively came to an end as a result, for example, of deals struck enabling account information to be sent to authorities in countries such as the US.

There is no doubt of course that secrecy as we have known it is on the way out in practice to some extent. In 2018, Switzerland will start to automatically exchange information with members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The number of exceptions to bank secrecy has been growing and is likely to still do so. However – and your correspondent has been reminded of this by legal experts this week in Geneva – if an account-holder has no tax or other issues, and has declared it to relevant authorities, then it remains a severe criminal offence for his or her banker to divulge that information. Swiss bankers therefore are not exempt from the strictures of this law. Another point worth considering is that so-called “whistleblowers” cannot just assume that an indiscriminate leaking of client account data is going to get them any favours from the Swiss courts.

The decision by the Swiss government to hold fire for now is, so the Swiss media reckons, a blow to the federal Minister of Finance, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf. It has definitely been impressed upon me this week that there is unhappiness in Switzerland’s private banking and trusts sector in how much Switzerland has conceded without obtaining in return. For example, around the vexed issue of beneficial ownership, I have been struck by how angry people in the Geneva banking community are about how the US appears not to be under any obligation to divulge such information. I have lost count of the times the word “Delaware” has been mentioned.

Some Swiss public figures wish to retain secrecy, even to the point of enshrining it in the Swiss constitution. A group that handed in signatures earlier this year to do precisely that reportedly said this week that the Swiss government’s change of plan did not affect their wish to have the public vote on the issue. The committee is made up of members of the conservative right Swiss People’s Party, the centre-right Radical Party and Christian Democratic Party, the Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Homeowners’ Association.

They want a court to decide whether private banking data should be released to the tax authorities in cases when there is a strong suspicion of tax evasion.

Swiss bank secrecy may look tattered and torn. It is not, however, dead, and may be around for longer than some people might think.