There are plenty of places in the world with the combination of good political stability and secure banking secrecy laws however, the best place in the world to set up a new offshore account today is Panama hands down.
In order to take advantage of the benefits that an offshore bank account in Panama can provide there are a few things to consider to ensure that you are maintaining the highest level of privacy when performing your transactions.
How to Use an Offshore Corporate Bank Account
Once you open a corporate bank account and put money in it, that money is then considered to be owned by the corporation who owns the bank account. If the corporation is an anonymous bearer share corporation your identity is protected since discovering the owner of the corporation is very difficult.
A person would need to get a court order from a Panamanian court to discover the beneficiary of the corporate bank account, which is almost unheard of except in the case of serious criminal activity such as drug trafficking.
Even if a business enemy was looking for this beneficiary actively it would be almost impossible for them to transfer a personal debt to this corporation in normal circumstances.
For them to do this they would need to prove that the beneficiary transferred funds directly to the corporation to escape paying debtors which is known as fraudulent conveyance.
Court cases relating to these actions are very complex, expensive and can take years to be resolved. With an anonymous bearer share corporation registered in Panama no one is aware of the owners of the corporation, so when these corporations receive bank wires no one is aware of actual recipient of these funds without a legal investigation.
Using ATM Cards with your Panamanian Bank Account
Upon opening a Panama bank account you have the choice of having an ATM card (automated teller machine card) that is capable of withdrawing monies from ATM machines worldwide in different denominations.
Your name is handwritten on the back of these cards which can be directly tied to the issuing bank you are using putting a damper on your privacy flexibility.
To improve privacy get an ATM card from another unrelated financial institution. Often it is possible to get a card that does not have your name printed on it. Money can be transferred to the ATM card by wire from your Panama bank account and then withdrawn as needed with no financial trail leading directly to you.
Be Wary of Visa and Mastercard Debit Cards
Using Visa or Mastercard Debit cards can be convenient but come with a few privacy pitfalls. There was recently a court order served in Miami, Florida to obtain Mastercard records which could easily happen again in the future.
A way to combat this problem is to get a Visa or Mastercard debit card issued by a non-Panamanian bank. You can then fund these cards by wiring money directly from your Panama bank account. By doing this you erase any association the cards have to your real bank account. The card(s) should originate from a bank in a country that practices bank secrecy.
How these programs work is that visa and Mastercard are unaware of the card holder s personal information, only the issuing bank possesses this information as they require a passport and an issuing address during the application process.
A law firm issuing a subpoena to Visa or Mastercard would be a fruitless exercise since the card issuing bank is in a secrecy protected country which would require a court order issued by a Panamanian court to pierce the veil.
You should use a country where address verification is not required on debit cards or alternatively use a mailing or billing address in another country where you know you have a reliable mail box.
A step like this further enhances your secrecy and protects you from identity theft that can arise by using the card for personal use.
Contacting Your Offshore Bank By Telephone
If you must contact your offshore bank via telephone it is advisable to set up a separate phone line other than your home or cell phone to prevent records of your calls appearing on your phone bills.
Private detectives in the USA, for example, can easily get copies of your phone records and quickly find your offshore bank by scanning the records for international calls.
Online Banking Tips When Using Your Offshore Bank Account
Online banking is a wonderful feature as it allows for all your bank account transactions to be kept online but keep in mind that your internet service provider can reveal a lot about your activities if they were asked. Most ISP s are loosely regulated if at all and can be run by criminals and other underhanded people.
Even the established ISP s like AOL and MSN have all of the information on every website you have ever visited as well as every email you have sent from their network. If you were to read the fine print of your contract you would quickly discover that they do not need a court order to transmit your information to third parties.
The way to avoid this is to access an anonymous ISP to surf the internet by logging onto a VPN which garbles the data going to through the ISP s servers so that if they intercepted the files they would be unreadable rubbish.
You need to ensure that the VPN does not save your files for long, if at all to track down spammers and hackers. Do not bookmark your online bank and save your passwords in encrypted form.
You should use a hard drive cleaner to delete the footprints of sites you have visited, cookies and other downloaded information that Windows saves in temporary locations.
It is possible for a trojan horse to get your online bank account password which would give the trojan creator access to your bank account. Make sure you have the latest anti virus software installed to combat trojan horses and viruses.
To further enhance your privacy you should also consider an application-based firewall and a wireless router using encryption. If you use these methods and keep them up to date you should be safe from criminals getting your passwords.
Mitch is an offshore banking expert with OffshoreLegal.org. For more information about offshore banking or to get a panama bank account please visit Offshorelegal.org.
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