Yacoub

Greetings:

I am looking for the best offshore bank to open an account in. I was with Irish Permanent International (IPI) for years and they served me quite well. However, the main bank in Ireland got out of the offshore business and now I am in the market for a good offshore bank. We are all in the same boat (living in the Middle East (BTW, I’m in the KSA) and trying to put some money away for the future) so I think we all know what we want in an offshore bank (i.e., a nice safe place to put our hard earned money in). In addition, I want a bank with the absolute minimum amount requirement to open a new account (related to this is that if they want a million pounds initially, I am definite not their type of customer) and one that allows me to open an account in Euros. Finally, one that actually issued me a credit card ASAP would also be very nice but I don’t really expect it. That’s it for now and I look forward to reading your suggestions and advice.

Blue Cat

Hi, we have a couple of Independent Financial advisors on the board, I am sure they will be able to offer their advice. It is the weekend here so give it a day or two

Norm_uk

There's not really a "best"" offshore bank to be honest (just some who are better than others). A lot depends on the service you expect and also what kind of account you are looking for. Some charge a lot for international transfers so make sure you check their rates for everyday services and are comfortable with them.

I personally use Standard Bank in the Isle of Man and recommend them to my clients and friends for regular current accounts. They offer accounts in Sterling, USD and Euros and their minimums are around the 5-10K mark (reckoned over a quarter). They offer the usual internet and phone banking and are set up to deal with expats like us and I've found their service quite good. If you need more info feel free to drop me a PM.

Offshore banks can be good places to build up and keep spare cash for emergencies (I recommend having several months worth of income tucked away in case anything goes wrong to any expat) but beyond that emergency fund you should really be looking at a variety of investments (property, shares, short term bonds etc etc etc) rather than bank accounts - money left sitting in banks will decrease in value in line with inflation (few banks give interest that approaches inflation and I challenge anyone to find me a millionaire who made their money by interest earning bank accounts )

N.

xpatadventure

Check out this site: www.lloydstsb.ae

I just open mine a week ago and find that they have good services for expat and people who likes to invest their money without risk of losing their principle deposit. They don't require much of paperwork to open up an offshore account as well as options of minimum requirement.

Good Luck.

irich

Nationwide International based in the IOM.

Nothing but excellent service for 9 years. I can't say the same about Barclays, who once lost 25K

Bijilo123

Bradford and Bingley Intl based in IoM. They are good because they don't need proof of domestic address - and one of the few in practice which can offer an account to Kuwaiti residents...because it is difficult to prove residential address in Kuwait.

Jim Smith

I would disagree with this statement!
I have been with BnB for quite a number of years and have a few small pensions paying into my account there. I rarely check it but did finally notice it was paying 0.1% so looked at their website and decided to see if I could open a new account with them that was paying a whopping 2.75%
Being an existing account holder seemed to be no help whatsoever and I got the full money laundering treatment before they finally agreed to a new account! It took 3-4 months!

Bijilo123

Specifically I am recommending Bradford and Bingly International - which is owned by but independent of B&B UK and I was able to switch funds to their higher paying accounts easily - indeed they recommended it. I found dealing with them reasonably easy and it took a couple of weeks to open my account from scratch - in Kuwait.

My recommendation for BBI includes acknowledging the difficulty of opening an account whe you have no proof of residential addresses - Kuwait and Gambia being cases in point - places where I lived. BBI are one of the few that do this and I recall the other choice at the time was some Icelandic bank which subsequently went bust.

I could have opened an account with Std Chartered in Kuwait but it would have been no different from a local account with an Arab Bank.

Jim Smith

I was also talking about BBI!!!

NaimTakieddin

Actually, I wanna share this link with you guys...read it twice ..believe me it will enrich your ideas :


http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/money101/lesson1/index.htm

Cheers

NT

Norm_uk

That's pretty much what most Financial Planners including myself tell people.

And it's pretty much what most people ignore...

N.