French bank BNP Paribas will stop operating in countries considered tax havens, CEO Baudouin Prot said Monday.

In an interview with French radio station Europe 1, Prot said BNP "will have no more activity" in countries on the "grey list" of nations that the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says have not signed on to international tax information exchange rules.

BNP spokeswoman Christelle Maldague said the decision would apply to BNP branches in Panama and the Bahamas.

The bank has six branches between the two countries, another BNP spokeswoman said Monday.

Grey list

The OECD released a so-called grey list of countries earlier this year that have not signed on to international tax information exchange rules.

Switzerland last week became the 12th country to accept the rules and move to the "white list".

Prot said BNP would from now on list in its annual reports where it has activities abroad.

Jeffrey Owens, director of the OECD's Center for Tax Policy and Administration, said in a telephone interview Monday that he was not aware of other banks having taken similar action, but said he believes "a number of banks are looking at their investment policies".

International financial institutions like the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development were reviewing their policies "in terms of which countries they will have activities in," Owens said.

"Banks like BNP are positioning themselves to avoid any embarrassment down the line," Owens said. "If you're in the financial sector, your reputation is everything and you don't want to tarnish your reputation by being in a nonco-operative jurisdiction."

- AP