EU agrees deal to share banking data with US

(BRUSSELS) - EU nations on Wednesday agreed a deal setting conditions for US authorities to access personal information from the interbank transfer service SWIFT for use in anti-terror investigations.

SWIFT, or Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, based near Brussels, deals with trillions of dollars in global transactions daily between nearly 8,000 financial institutions in 200-plus countries.

Under the deal, agreed by representatives of the 27 EU member states on Wednesday, data would be kept for five years and the United States could only use it for counter-terrorism purposes.

The agreement will be ratified on Thursday at a meeting of EU ministers, EU diplomats said.

SWIFT admitted last year that it had provided US authorities with a "limited" amount of data in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001 but insisted it had done its utmost to protect privacy.

Under EU data protection rules, information on money transfers can be used only for banking purposes, and not for other uses, such as investigating terrorism financing.

Washington insists the information is essential in the battle against extremist groups.

"Some issues are left to discuss but the agreement is there," an EU diplomat said.

"There should be some follow up on procedural matters such as appointing a person from the European side to follow the matter but the basic issue was to get an agreement."

Another diplomat said the deal "provides the necessary data protection safeguards" and that it would involve an exchange of letters with the United States.

SWIFT has said that it considers EU privacy laws, based on a 1995 directive, in need of updating, because they were crafted at a time when comparatively less attention was paid to terrorist funding.