New Delhi, June 13 (PTI) Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today called for stepping up multilateral cooperation to end the era of banking secrecy and deal with the "abusive" transfer pricing mechanism that is robbing developing nations of their scarce natural resources.

Mukherjee, while addressing a seminar on international taxation jointly organised by his ministry and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), regretted that the banking system is still opaque in various non-tax and low tax jurisdictions.

Despite efforts made at the global level and statements issued by G-20 leaders at their London summit in April, 2009, "We cannot say with certainty that the bank secrecy is over in all cases", the minister said.

"While the countries have accepted to end bank secrecy in general, come countries have agreed to do so only from a prospective date and are not willing to exchange past banking information," Mukherjee said.