LONDON, April 2 (Reuters) - G20 leaders, seeking at a summit to toughen regulation of financial markets, agreed on Thursday that blacklists of tax havens should be published in the near future, a European diplomat said. "The G20 has agreed that it will be the OECD which will publish the tax haven list imminently," said the diplomat, who is attending the summit in London. "There will be a white, grey and black list (of tax havens) referring to those who have signed up to OECD rules on information sharing, those who have signed up but not yet applied them and those who are in the clear."
Several financial centres including Switzerland have said in recent weeks they will work towards meeting OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) standards on bank secrecy and tax fraud, ceding to mounting talks of blacklists and possible sanctions for countries on them. British Treasury Minister Stephen Timms said earlier during the G20 summit that leaders were set to agree on publication of blacklists "in due course" and that sanctions could be applied.