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Offshore Banking: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Vatican…
By admin | March 15, 2009
The Vatican is expected to demand the end of offshore banking in its official statement, the encyclical, which is due to be released during the coming week. According to Offshore Net, the Vatican blames offshore banking for the financial crisis and also points the blame for offshore banking’s involvement in transferring wealth from poverty stricken parts of the world to richer countries. According to the Vatican, if taxed at source these funds could be much better utilized in helping the citizens of these underdeveloped countries. I really don’t agree with them…
Today being Sunday, I thought it might be an interesting time to talk about the Vatican Bank, or The Institute for Religious Works (in Italian: Istituto per le Opere di Religione – IOR) as it is more correctly known. The Vatican Bank is located inside the Vatican City. That’s one very rich country, with no taxation, that receives quite a lot of money from poor, undeveloped countries.
The Vatican Bank is a professionally run international bank, even having its own SWIFT code IOPRVAVX, which is more than can be said for many of the offshore banks out there! It maintains correspondent accounts for moving money at all major US and European banks. It offers what amount to a range of trust and asset protection services, and of course it deals in gold bullion.
Once I wrote to them and asked if I, as a non-resident of the Vatican, could open an account, but sadly I never received a reply. Perhaps, therefore, their service is not up to Liechtenstein’s Private Banking service level.
The Vatican Bank operates exactly like a small, privacy-oriented offshore bank – moving millions for organizations worldwide that are not, to put it mildly, bastions of transparency. It is said to have at least $10 billion in assets under control, for depositors around the world – Foundations and the like. (I wonder if they have any Panama Foundations as account holders?) It was involved in a major political and financial scandal in the 1980s, concerning the collapse of Italian bank Banco Ambrosiano, of which it was a major share-holder at the time.
The Vatican, in my mind therefore, deserves its place as a small European state with an impressive wealth management (basically offshore banking) industry, alongside the players I more frequently write about such as Andorra, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg. These three little states have a lot to offer in terms of offshore banking.
Two more European mini-states I write about less frequently are Monaco and San Marino. Both of these also have their niche private banking businesses, but it is harder to open accounts and they usually require substantial minimum deposits.
N.B.: More information including specific, step-by-step advice and detailed contact information on how you can open your own offshore bank accounts in all these European tax havens (with the possible exception of the Vatican!) may be found in the Practical Offshore Banking Guide 2009 available FREE for download in the Members’ Section at Q Wealth Report.
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