Offshore Banking Choices: Choosing Offshore Jurisdiction

Factors that should be taken in consideration when choosing an offshore banking jurisdiction:

-political stability of the jurisdiction;

-economic stability of the jurisdictions;

-reputation (it will be very useful to read the reports of the Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch);

-the quality of the regulations;

-the accessibility of the deposits;

-the protection of investors and the insurance schemes;

-mother company;

-other guarantees.

Types of clients of the offshore bank:

Overall offshore banks seek to provide offshore banking services only for certain categories of clients or all clients, for example:

-private banking clients;

- retail banking clients- clients which need offshore bank accounts for transactions, usually they use they are involved in international trade activities.

Private offshore banking services

In spite of the fact that banking services are not an easy business there is a model of doing business: “make the rich people happy”. Defining private banking services differs from one bank to the other but can be defined in general as a private offer personalized of a bank for a client that has it his disposal at least 100.000 USD (some banks offer such services only for clients that have minimum 500.000USD or 1.000.000USD). Private banking services are not synonyms to the term “offshore” but the costs of the personalized relation start to justify themselves at a sum bigger than 100.000USD.

Expatriates

A lot of offshore banks offer offshore banking services orientated towards expatriate persons. These banks concentrate on such services as online banking, call-centers, life insurance etc.

Trade activities/international services

It has to be noted that for those businessmen who use offshore banking for commercial purposes such as trade, providing services, an offshore banking which specialize in private banking or services for expatriates will be an inappropriate choice.

Businessmen who are involved in commercial activities look for an offshore bank which would provide the following services:

-Handling cash flows;

-Services of external exchange and treasury services;

- international trading – banking guarantee letters, different documents, global banking services within different world time zones;

-risk handling: external exchange, financing and rate of interest;

-payments, installments and payroll solutions;

-expertise in such issues as energy, shipping or real estate etc.

Those who want to open an offshore banking account should realize that opening such an account is not that simple and may take some time. Some offshore banks can open an account within 30 or more days from the day all the necessary documents are received.