How to choose the best bank from all the offshore banks? Should I open the account in a classic Swiss bank? Or should I go for account in a modern bank on a small offshore island?
In order to choose the most appropriate offshore bank for you and your business you should consider a number of aspects. Firstly, the services that the bank offers – does it provide exactly the services necessary to develop and operate your business? If you have an active trading business, you should not look at the banks that provide mainly wealth management services. And the contrary, if you wish to invest some of your funds in financial instruments, you do not necessarily need a bank providing small business loans or merchant services. Another important question, what are the fees of the bank? One bank may have just slightly higher fees than the other one but if you do hundreds of transactions of small amount every month or every day, you will feel the difference soon enough.
Each offshore bank has their own client acceptance policies. Verify if you and your business correspond to these policies. Some banks do not accept clients from particular countries or geographic areas, other banks do not accept certain types of business. Many banks have determined minimum balance to be maintained at the account. Will your IBC be able to satisfy this requirement?
A few other issues that should be considered: is the bank in your time zone or the time zone of your clients to be able to contact it at the time you need? Do the staff speak your language? What is the quality of work ethics in the particular bank or in the jurisdiction of the bank in general as this may result in good service, quick and accurate work or, on the contrary, delays, mistakes and poor attitude.
Once all the above questions are answered you may be left with surprisingly few offshore banks to choose from.
