Choosing Your Offshore Bank Account

One of the first offshore step many people undertake is to open an offshore bank account. You have a few options and choices to chose from. Starting with choosing between a corporate or individual account.

In any case, you should be careful when choosing your overseas bank to ensure your money is safe.

Your Offshore Bank

The first step is to select the bank which will best suit your needs. Your choice will depend on a few factors:

• Entry Fee?
  I like to work by elimination. The first check you should do is ask yourself how much you’d like to allocate to your offshore bank account. This will make sure you don’t lose time considering banks which would not consider you.
• Where is it located?
  The location in itself is not that important. What is important is whether this location is politically and economically safe. It also is good to check whether you understand the language spoken in this location, and if they have sufficient English speaker to assist you should you not. You should be be able to reach your bank easily, and preferably be able to go there should the need arise
• Does it offer internet banking?
  Internet banking is bliss. It alows you to easily manage your money from abroad and you escape the time-lag usually suffered when dealing internationally. A must have in my opinion.
• What charging structure?
  Of course, do check the bank charges associated with your offshore account. We would not want you to loose your monies over crazy banking fees, isn’t it.
  

Your Bank Credentials and Legislation

You should always check your bank’s credential befor signing up with them. How long have they been around? Do they have a parent company? Do they have a history you can refer back to? With banks such as HSBC or Lloyd’s it is quite easy to do your due diligence. It sometimes is more difficult with smaller Caribbean ones.

Following your bank’s location, different laws and regulations are in place. You should quickly check

• Privacy Regulations
  Ensuring that your selecting offshore entity has no obligation to release your personal or business information, can allow you to enjoy great deal of privacy & confidentiality. Of course, you never are 100% safe. But unless suitable evidence can be shown to prove that you have been involved in criminal activities, such as money laundering or drug trafficking, you should be good to go.
• Double Taxation Agreement or Treaties?
  One of the many advantage of offshore banking is that once your assets are held offshore, they are unreachable by domestic courts. You should check though whether your offshore jurisdiction has any double tax or tax exchange treaties. Many offshore jurisdiction are trying to clean up their branding. Hence they have passed agreement and treaties with onshore authorities to exchange information with each other. This does not work when you are still residing outside of your home-country. But should you reside in your home-country and wish to keep your information private, you always have the choice of paying a with-holding tax on your profit (such agreement is in place between the Isle of Man and the European Union).

Account Opening Process & Security

Opening your account offshore may not be as straight forward a process as entering a counter and signing a few documents. Every serious bank will try to define the real owner of the funds on the account, and will due-diligence a few things before it can accept your application. They need to make sure your funds are genuine, and it ensures your bank accounts for your monies along the way, starting from the moment you open your bank account.

Most banks will request for the following documents:

• Certified Copies of passport and ID
• Proof of address (employment contract, utility bill, bank statement etc.)
• Description of your business / job and source of the funds

Should you open a corporate account, it may also ask for the following

• Letters of reference from lawyers, auditors, accountants etc.

My preferred banking institution

I personally like to work with two institutions

Lloyds TSB Offshore offers a great account with a very reasonable entry fees (USD100). Their facilities are not optimal, but the service is very decent. And at such a low entry fee, you can start enjoying all the benefits of a reputable offshore banking structure.

Close Private Banking is more exclusive. The entry fees are not as reasonable as Lloyds (£20,000), but you get what you pay for. Great services and extensive banking facilities.