As an indication of how international tensions are worsening between  financial jurisdictions over bank secrecy and tax, a senior Swiss banker has accused the UK government of hypocrisy, according to media reports.

While financial services in places like Switzerland are under scrutiny, the UK has a network of semi-autonomous financial centres with few or no taxes. That puts UK prime minister Gordon Brown in no position to campaign against offshore tax havens and banking secrecy, said Pierre Mirabaud, chairman of the Swiss Bankers' Association in Geneva.

“I would define Mr Brown and the British government’s position as full of hypocrisy,” the outspoken Mr Mirabaud, who is also senior partner of Mirabaud & Cie, the private bank, was quoted as saying in an interview. “At the end of the day, we are engaged in an economic war for market share.”

Guernsey’s private equity firms, Jersey’s securitization vehicles, the Cayman Islands’ hedge funds, Bermuda’s insurers, and the British Virgin Islands’ holding companies are all incorporated on sovereign UK ground.

Offshore financial centres have been under relentless rhetorical assault in recent months, often from governments that are short of money and anxious to close any tax loopholes. Switzerland, Singapore, Liechtenstein and other locations have recently relaxed laws restricting release of bank client data, although the Swiss, for example, insist bank secrecy remains intact.

Mr Brown, preparing for a Group of 20 summit in early April at which the role of tax havens will be on the agenda, recently said: “How much safer would everybody’s savings be if the whole world finally came together to outlaw shadow banking systems and offshore tax havens?”

In data cited by Bloomberg, it says the UK, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Dublin held a combined 24 per cent of offshore private banking assets in 2007, or $1.7 trillion, second after Switzerland’s 27 per cent share, or $2 trillion. The data was based on research from Boston Consulting Group.

While Mr Brown, US president Barack Obama and other leaders of large countries have attacked tax havens, organisations such as the US-based Cato Institute, a think tank, argue these centres’ low taxes encourage other countries to reduce taxes, thereby raising economic growth overall.