[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Be careful where you put up
Apropos the thread about asset allocation and relocation to hedge political
risk, today's FINANCIAL TIMES reports:
>Offshore banking centres agree to greater scrutiny
>
> Tuesday October 8 1996
>
> By George Graham, Banking Correspondent
>
> Banking supervisors from large offshore financial
centres have agreed to
> co-operate more with their counterparts in
industrialised nations in
> investigating irregular behaviour at banks under their
control.
<SNIP>
> The drafting involved hard negotiations on issues such
as when a
> supervisor could ask for the identity of an individual
depositor or investor.
> A supervisor in Europe may, for example, want to know
that a bank is not
> dependent for all its deposits on one source, but the
offshore centre does
> not want that to serve as an excuse for trawling for tax
evaders.
>
> In all 140 countries have endorsed the deal, which sets
out procedures for
> exchanging information between supervisors and also
establishes a
> checklist to ensure that banking operations in a
particular country are
> subject to effective supervision.
>
> The agreement says home supervisors should be able to
inspect the books
> of shell branches wherever they are kept. "In no case
should access to
> these books be protected by secrecy requirements in the
country that
> licenses the shell branch," it says.
Don Weightman
[email protected]