A Look At Off-Shore Banking Havens

Here is a look at the top off-share banking havens:

From Economist.com:

PRIVATE banking is meant to be boring. Not so for UBS (UBS), a Swiss bank which trained some staff in counter-surveillance techniques and infiltrated them into America to meet clients, say American prosecutors. This helped garner $20 billion in assets from at least 20,000 American clients, 17,000 of whom did not mention their numbered Swiss bank accounts when filling in their American tax returns. On February 18th UBS agreed to pay fines of $780m and to hand the American authorities the names and account details of up to 300 clients whose cash it had helped to hide from the taxman. Dismayed champions of banking secrecy worry that the Swiss regulator’s agreement to allow UBS to name the clients has endangered the country’s status as the biggest off-shore haven for the world’s rich.

Graphic courtesy of Economist.com

At the end of the day I suspect that this will just be a temporary setback, because I seriously doubt the Swiss (or their wealthy and well connected clients) are going to let the IRS destroy the Swiss Private Banking industry. I can see a few concessions being made here and there, but overall I suspect things will remain relatively intact. When you’re running a business that  provides financial services and  privacy for the very wealthy and well connected, you’ll find a way to innovate and protect your business.

Now I’m not saying that this is a good or a bad thing, just nothing how I think things will play out.

Disclosure: at the time of publishing the author didn’t own a position in any of the companies mentioned in this article; the ideas expressed are solely the opinions of the author and shouldn’t be viewed as financial or investment advice.

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