Hola, new to the forums, but an expat and PT of nearly 15yrs travelling our planet non-stop since 2004. Just figured I'd share a little experience for those folks looking at opening offshore accounts today.
I've opened accounts in 12 countries, not many I'll admit, but it has given me a little insight at least. In the mid to late 2000's bank secrecy did in fact exist, there were places one could get an old school numbered account - these, to my knowledge only exists in one country today and I don't know if they open new ones anymore. Now since around 2010 or so things started tightening up, secrecy definitely disappeared entirely and only slivers of privacy remained on the outskirts of OECD's grey/black list of countries. Since 2014/15 or so and today all offshore banks I've worked with require extensive paperwork to comply with their KYC (know your customer) rules and in my opinion offshore banks today offer zero benefit over a given domestic bank (other than being in a different jurisdiction). Often you will find fees are very high as they've not really caught on to the fact that they have no advantage and just go about business as usual.
The simplest countries to work with are in fact not traditional offshore countries, rather they are totally regular western places such as Australia, Canada and Germany. Neither of these places require much paperwork (a passport and perhaps utility bill at most) and have nearly no KYC questions, nor do they question if you move over 10,0000 EUR/AUD/CAD in/out of your account. They provide excellent credit card services, modern internet banking (many offshore banks have limited resources in this regard). Their staff also isn't used to being considered "offshore" so they do things quickly, efficiently and without question or extreme documentation.
There are even banks out there (actually, credit unions/building societies) who still to this day, charge ZERO monthly fees, ZERO fees for a Visa debit card (which works fine overseas) and even some who pay 2%+ interest rate on transaction accounts (no restrictions).
Banks are a necessary evil I'd rather be without, but given the current world situation where secrecy and privacy is DEAD I'd go with a local bank where you live for everyday stuff and look to the most loose western countries mentioned above; Canada, Australia and Germany.
Anyway just my two cents - I think traditional offshore banking is dead, they just don't know it yet.
I've opened accounts in 12 countries, not many I'll admit, but it has given me a little insight at least. In the mid to late 2000's bank secrecy did in fact exist, there were places one could get an old school numbered account - these, to my knowledge only exists in one country today and I don't know if they open new ones anymore. Now since around 2010 or so things started tightening up, secrecy definitely disappeared entirely and only slivers of privacy remained on the outskirts of OECD's grey/black list of countries. Since 2014/15 or so and today all offshore banks I've worked with require extensive paperwork to comply with their KYC (know your customer) rules and in my opinion offshore banks today offer zero benefit over a given domestic bank (other than being in a different jurisdiction). Often you will find fees are very high as they've not really caught on to the fact that they have no advantage and just go about business as usual.
The simplest countries to work with are in fact not traditional offshore countries, rather they are totally regular western places such as Australia, Canada and Germany. Neither of these places require much paperwork (a passport and perhaps utility bill at most) and have nearly no KYC questions, nor do they question if you move over 10,0000 EUR/AUD/CAD in/out of your account. They provide excellent credit card services, modern internet banking (many offshore banks have limited resources in this regard). Their staff also isn't used to being considered "offshore" so they do things quickly, efficiently and without question or extreme documentation.
There are even banks out there (actually, credit unions/building societies) who still to this day, charge ZERO monthly fees, ZERO fees for a Visa debit card (which works fine overseas) and even some who pay 2%+ interest rate on transaction accounts (no restrictions).
Banks are a necessary evil I'd rather be without, but given the current world situation where secrecy and privacy is DEAD I'd go with a local bank where you live for everyday stuff and look to the most loose western countries mentioned above; Canada, Australia and Germany.
Anyway just my two cents - I think traditional offshore banking is dead, they just don't know it yet.
