What you need to know about offshore banking

These are sites which are characterized by low taxes, a high degree of confidentiality and minimal financial market supervision and regulation (see also tax haven). Based banks and other financial institutions handle a large part of their business abroad and the transactions and investment totals are compared to other business processes extremely large.
Many offshore financial centers are located on small islands. Most of these are former British colonies or dependencies to know where is the original name (translated as beyond the coastal region, ie lying in international waters). However, offshore today in this context is not geographically, but rather to understand legal terms: the financial markets are located outside the standards of justice.

Proponents of offshore financial centers to emphasize their important role in the international monetary system in which they allow their liberal laws, the development of special instruments such as risk management. They also may be important as regulators, which prevented that governments could raise taxes too much.
Be criticized offshore financial centers, especially as tax havens that favor in combination with their rigid bank secrecy, tax evasion in other countries.