Singapore - home to one of the world's highest concentrations of millionaires - is taking steps to debunk its growing reputation as a tax haven.

The tiny city-state has, over the past three years, revised half of its 70 tax treaties with other countries to make it easier to exchange information on possible tax dodgers.

Its drive to clean up its image is part of 'efforts to protect the integrity and reputation of Singapore as a trusted international financial centre,' the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the central bank and financial regulator told Reuters.

And with a top tax rate of just 20% and no capital gains tax, it's an obvious draw for potential global tax evaders.

But from 2013, any bankers that help a client to evade their taxes will risk the threat of finding themselves in court on money laundering charges.

The first round of a peer review by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2011 found that while Singapore had the majority of established standards in place, there was a clear need to update and increase its information exchange pacts.

Eyes have been increasingly re-focused on Singapore as Western governments continue to try and ramp up the effectiveness of their tax collecting abilities in a bid to boost their dwindling national funds. And as Switzerland begins to open up its once secretive banking laws, fears are growing that money - much of it potentially illicit - is being directed towards Singapore's financial organisations.

Meanwhile Ronen Palan, a professor of International Political Economy at London's City University has expressed the difficulties in trying to gain access to information in Singapore, stating that it is easier to conduct research on Jersey or Switzerland than Singapore.

But Singapore is now making moves towards global tax transparency.

Its monetary authority is now urging banks to increase client scrutiny with plans afoot to draw up a range of serious tax crimes for money laundering offences from July 2013.

Over 40 people were convicted of money laundering offences in Singapore in 2010 and 2011, with some £66m being seized or frozen, according to its Commercial Affairs Department.

The country's Monetary Authority said: 'Singapore has always taken a tough enforcement approach against money laundering and our authorities will not hesitate to pursue and prosecute such cases.'