Offshore Banking Solutions For Expats

Offshore Banking Solutions For Expats

If you are living and working abroad, your priorities will centre around ensuring the security of your income and assets, efficient structuring of your finances / wealth and also ensuring maximum tax efficiency. An offshore bank will be a logical choice for you given that it has the in-house expertise to deal with a wide variety of international financial and other issues. Here are a few ways in which an offshore bank account can help you with your living / working experience abroad:

Moving / immigration planning – It is not uncommon to find offshore banks that help their clients with a variety of services including immigration consulting. These services could include:

▪ Employment and other visa applications

▪ Change of status applications (e.g. from visitor visa to employment visa)

▪ Investment visa applications

▪ Visas for dependants, spouse and children

▪ Helping with document gathering and pre-processing, obtaining required translations and authentications and co-ordinating the processing of visas and applications

Expat Banking – An expat banking service will provide a central location for your money while you move around the world. You also get a variety of multi-currency savings and current accounts, multi currency time deposit account, debit and credit cards, deposits along with a wide choice of international investment products and a variety of channels (including online / mobile / phone banking) through which you can access your money and manage your banking assets.

Income Protection – If you are engaged in the provision of professional services you can consider the setting up of an offshore personal service company or employment company, as it may be known. This company can then contract to supply your services outside the country in which you are normally resident and the fees earned can accumulate offshore, free from taxation. Payments to you can then be structured in such a way to minimise income tax. Such a structure can also help you get asset protection against potential liabilities.

Healthcare Insurance – Medical issues can arise unexpectedly and you may not have access to the class of medical resources and support you may be accustomed to, in the country you may be residing / working. Your offshore bank can also help you identify and choose the right healthcare policy that suits your lifestyle along with fast and efficient claims processing, the ability to choose where in the world you want to be treated if ill and efficient assistance services. 

Credit and Financing Solutions Offered Through An Offshore Bank – II

In our previous post we looked at some of the basics of credit and financing solutions offered through an offshore bank. In this post we will take a more detailed look at particular requirement / need scenarios and how an offshore banking provider can help you with an appropriate financing solution:

Expanding your investment portfolio

You own a large position in a single stock; or, you hold a substantial number of units within a specific asset category or a highly concentrated stock portfolio. You wish to expand / diversify your current portfolio. Your offshore bank can help you with a leverage loan, a credit facility that leverages your current portfolio holding as collateral, at attractive and flexible terms. 

You  can use this financing to invest in new securities and asset classes. This can be a cost-effective way of acting on your market views, allows you to grow your net worth and helps you to reduce risk in your portfolio.

Expanding your business

You may:

▪ Be looking to expand your current business holdings

▪ Want to purchase/acquire another business

▪ Be exploring options to finance imports / exports for your business

▪ Want to invest in machinery, equipment or make other capital improvements to your existing business

▪ Want to decrease the borrowing costs of your business with interest rates that may be lower than those available in the country where your business is located

Your offshore banking provider can help you with letters of credit or guarantee if you wish to borrow elsewhere at favourable terms or a line of credit (secured by your assets or investments) to help you finance your business expansion plans.

Home buying

You may wish to buy or build a home or a vacation home in your home country or another country. Financing such a home acquisition may need to consider such factors as your estate / tax planning needs, the number of countries across which you own assets etc. 

The credit specialists at your offshore bank can work with your tax advisory team and help you with a mortgage finance solution for your new home, refinance your existing mortgage and access the equity that's accrued to your current home or advise you to buy the home for your child, grandchild or parents. 

Luxury Assets

A vintage car, a yacht, bloodstock or works of art – you may have had your eye on this for some time or you may wish to celebrate / mark a major milestone, your offshore bank can help you finance such purchases through lines of credit or collateralized credit. 

Your offshore bank can not only help you with flexible and multi-currency financing solutions for your specific needs it can also help you identify the right financing solution given your risk profile, investment goals and tax considerations.

Read more : Credit and Financing Solutions Offered Through An Offshore Bank - I

Credit and Financing Solutions Offered Through An Offshore Bank - I

One of the advantages of using an offshore bank account is that you get a fairly broad range of flexible and tailored lending products that will help you take advantage of short-lived opportunities or meet some pressing personal or business needs. In this post, we will expand upon the range of credit and financing solutions available through an offshore bank account:

When would you need credit facilities from your offshore bank?

When you want to:

▪ Make additional investments without liquidating existing assets

▪ Match the currency of your assets and income to that of your loan commitments

▪ Make use of opportunities to benefit from raising a loan in a low interest rate currency while maintaining your assets in a higher interest rate currency

▪ Borrow to take advantage of fluctuations in currency movements

▪ Match the currency of your borrowings to that of your offshore income, especially if you are an expatriate

What kind of credit products are available from an offshore bank?

Some of the credit facilities that you may expect from your offshore provider would include lines of credit, real estate loans, letters of credit or guarantee (these can help you maintain your assets including cash deposits whilst gaining access to loan facilities elsewhere), foreign exchange trading products, secured loan facilities against cash deposits, unitised investments, traded bonds, listed equities etc and other bespoke credit solutions. 

You can also expect these solutions to be offered in multiple currencies, with flexible repayment features and at competitive interest rates like those based on the LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate).

Your credit needs may be unique to you; to help you create credit solutions, you will need a trusted partner who can take take into consideration your investment assets, real estate financing needs, trust assets, life insurance policies, tax considerations and other factors. Your offshore service provider would already hold many pieces of the puzzle that make up your unique requirements and would be best fitted to help you forward. 

There will more often than not, be times when using credit versus liquidating existing assets can be both prudent and profitable; work with the relationship manager and credit specialists from your offshore bank to make the most of such times.


Read More : Credit and Financing Solutions Offered Through An Offshore Bank – II