Who are Offshore-Offshore Banking Clients?
Accountants, business owners, crypto investors, wealthy families and law firms: Stefan Neuss explains the five client groups that use offshore-offshore banking.
Offshore-offshore banking, meaning banking in a jurisdiction outside both the client's home country and the usual offshore centres, is often seen as something mysterious. Stefan Neuss, founder of WERA Capital Partners, explains which client groups actually use it. According to him, five groups make up around 80 per cent of the firm's banking clients worldwide.
1. Accountants
Accountants who work for the top ten per cent of society understand how money moves. They use offshore-offshore banking for cross-border payments, for moving funds between jurisdictions and for large exchanges between traditional currencies and crypto assets.
2. Frustrated business owners
The second group are owners of companies with high six to eight-figure revenue who have had bad experiences with their high street bank. Neuss hears the same stories again and again: payments held without a clear reason, accounts frozen and, in the worst cases, closed. He accepts that banks must carry out identity and compliance checks, but says many owners simply want reliable service.
3. Crypto investors
Crypto investors value security and the absence of third parties. They can buy digital assets with ordinary money, store them in their own wallets, or convert them back to buy property or company shares. Neuss stresses the high limits: even very large volumes can be exchanged step by step.
4. Wealthy families
For rich and very rich families, privacy is the main reason. Neuss says that in the jurisdictions concerned there is no automatic exchange of account data with foreign authorities. Since the Panama Papers, many traditional offshore centres have given up banking secrecy. These families also value access to private and club deals that are not open to the public.
5. Law firms
The most surprising group, says Neuss, are law firms. They know how important confidentiality is and use offshore-offshore banks especially to process large cross-border payments for international clients and partners.
Advice is essential
Whether this kind of banking fits a client depends on their situation and on the tax and reporting rules of their home country. WERA Capital Partners offers in a 1h private consultation over zoom to explain how offshore-offshore banking works and whether it is suitable.