Mondaq Latin America: Wealth Management
An international business corporation (IBC) is designed to facilitate four areas of money management: Asset Protection, Estate and Wealth Preservation, Secrecy and Privacy, and potential Tax relief. The Belize IBC can be used as part of a solution.
There has long been a significant number of mutual companies on the Bermuda register, particularly shipping mutuals, known as Protection and Indemnity (P&I) clubs, whose purpose is to obtain coverage for risks such as hull damage, strike loss, war risks, freight, demurrage and defence.
The offshore funds market is growing rapidly and the Cayman Islands ("Cayman"), the British Virgin Islands ("BVI") and Bermuda have become the pre-eminent jurisdictions for the establishment of investment funds.
The concept of trust has been put into practice in the ordinances of several Latin American countries and more and more this type of instrument, which allows an infinite number of modalities arising from inter vivos or mortis causa contracts (eg. inheritances), is being utilized. It allows greater versatility in contractual relationships.
As we move closer to a global economy, there is a trend among smaller, less economically developed countries to follow Switzerland’s lead to legislate measures to attract foreign investment money to their economy. As a result new financial opportunities are opening to those who are willing to take advantage of them.
Guernsey has signed a bilateral Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) with Mexico.
During the last couple of years the world has been through a major financial crisis. Guernsey has not been completely immune from these pressures but the Island has to a large extent been sheltered from the most severe elements.
Within the current literature focusing on the Latin American insurance market there appears to be two words that commonly recur; ‘underdeveloped’ and ‘potential.’
Debate at a recent trusts forum in Guernsey has highlighted how the local trust sector is increasingly keen to explore opportunities in the emerging markets, according to Peter Niven, Chief Executive of Guernsey Finance.
The second bridge to be built over the Panama Canal at a cost of $100,000 million, and called the Centenary Bridge, is a fine sight.
Offshore financial centres need thick skins. Not only are they under constant criticism from the governments of developed countries, those individuals who don’t use their facilities are, generally speaking, less than flattering in their views of them as well.
Privacy advocates are drawn to the remaining offshore financial services centres which still offer confidentiality. Those pockets of privacy are a magnet to them, just as Europeans in winter travel in search of tropical sunshine and some find it in Florida. Miami, besides its weather, has many financial services companies some of which are servicing the needs of those who have been victims of economic disruptions in Latin America.
In recent years there has been a noticeable increase in smaller countries competing for a larger slice of the growing offshore financial market. While many smaller countries were once under large countries foreign empirical control, they are now independent and free to plot a self-directed course by which they can grow and prosper.
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Although internationally adopted, the expression "tax haven" has not been used in the Brazilian applicable legislation.
