An offshore bank account can help solve a number of tasks of various kinds and people open accounts with offshore banks for different reasons. One of the advantages that an offshore bank account can bring is the opportunity to keep the amount of our financial wealth confidential.
We are not speaking about hiding your capital from your home country’s fiscal authorities and evading taxes in this way. Tax evasion is a criminal offense and both national and international law enforcement agencies will never let tax evaders off the hook.
But you are entitled to protect your financial information from your competitors, overspending relatives, inquisitive press officers, and other third parties. This is not illegal at all and if banking privacy is among your top priorities, we suggest that you should consider opening a bank account in the British Virgin Islands.
The BVI is an Overseas Territory of Great Britain in the Caribbean. The jurisdiction is among the places where your banking privacy is going to be protected in the most efficient manner.
Bank officers in the BVI will never disclose your banking information to any unauthorized inquirer because they would face fines and prison sentences otherwise. The local legislation is very strict about banking secrecy.
Besides, the BVI has signed no tax agreements with other countries of the world.
This means that the information about your bank transactions will remain exclusively with the administration of the bank where you have set up an account unless there is an official request for information disclosure from the fiscal authorities of your home country (or the country of your tax residence).
Below we discuss several other reasons why you should consider opening an offshore bank account in the British Virgin Islands.
The three pillars of the BVI economy are agriculture, tourism, and offshore banking services. The land is less fertile in the BVI compared to some other Caribbean islands and the agricultural sector is focused mostly on farm animal breeding.
Tourism is a huge industry in the BVI. There were times when around a million tourists visited the islands every year. The BVI is a group of those little paradise islands in the Caribbean Sea.
As you certainly understand, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the tourist sector in the BVI greatly just the way it has affected the tourist sectors of all other countries. When the world is healthy again and when all the political conflicts are over, the BVI expects the tourist inflows to restore.
More than half of the revenue to the national budget comes from the banking sector in the BVI. Thus, the national economy depends on how well the local banks are doing to a great extent.
For this reason, the local authorities do their best to keep the banks in the country highly functional, efficient, and attractive to foreign clients. The population of the BVI is only a bit more than 30 thousand people and this means that the banks do need international clients if they are to keep going.
One of the advantages that the BVI boasts has become of special relevance in the modern turbulent world. This is a politically stable jurisdiction, it has a strong administration, and well-thought-out legislation based on the English Common Law. The local authorities pay little heed to the ‘mother country’. The BVI is a self-governed territory in the full sense of the word.
Another important fact is that the BVI has never been found on any black lists of uncooperative countries. This is not because the OECD and other similar international organizations are too shy to blacklist a British territory.
This is because all the government bodies and financial institutions in the BVI operate in full compliance with the commonly accepted regulations. More than 400,000 thousand international companies are registered in the BVI and the number is so high exactly because this is a reputable offshore jurisdiction.
The banking sector is strong and this statement can be supported by the large number of international clients that the local banks have and the portion of income that the banks bring to the national budget. The number of banks that operate on the islands is very small, however.
Only seven banks are functional in the country. You will understand that the number is small indeed, if you think of the number of banks in the Caymans, another British Overseas Territory located not far away from the BVI. More than 150 banks operate in the Caymans. At the same time, all the BVI banks are highly secure and they function smoothly.
The BVI willingly opens bank accounts for non-residents. What is more, you don’t have to travel to the islands if you would like to set up an offshore bank account in the jurisdiction. This can be done remotely. (We must note in parentheses that visiting the BVI would be a splendid idea because the islands are beautiful indeed.)
Besides, all the banks based in the BVI provide superb opportunities for banking online. All of them also issue bank cards that can be used internationally.
As the BVI is part of Great Britain, English is the language that is spoken there. It will be interesting to note, however, that the official currency in the British Virgin Islands is the American dollar. This fact should not probably be surprising if you think of the place where the BVI is located.
Geographically, it is much closer to the United States than to Great Britain. What is important for an international entrepreneur is that no currency control is applied in the BVI. You can freely exchange one currency for another without any restrictions.
Why are so many companies registered in the BVI? Because the jurisdiction is a tax haven, similar to the Cayman Islands. Corporations domiciled in the BVI are exempted from a large number of taxes payable in most other countries and territories.
The combination of these factors makes the BVI a highly attractive jurisdiction where you can open an offshore bank account. If you would like to do it from the comfort of your home, you have to seek professional assistance at International Wealth in the matter without any doubt.
