An offshore company is usually referred to as a company incorporated for the purpose of doing business outside of its country of registration. This means that such a company can be registered and operated outside the national borders of a person or company. This can be particularly worthwhile when it comes to legal, financial or tax advantages. A company can also legally move abroad to benefit from relaxed regulations, or in other words, to benefit from international laws. This is also the main reason why business people decide to set up a company abroad.

Some of the countries are deliberately making their local business attractive to leverage foreign capital and investment. The well organized and well known worldwide offshore destinations are UK, USA, Belize, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Dominica, Singapore, Seychelles, Panama and St Kitts & Nevis to name a few. Buying a business remotely these days is advantageous and easy to do.

Advantages of offshore companies
There are certain advantages of running an offshore company. For example property protection when a person has a lot of money and can use such an opportunity to protect them from lawsuits and divorce settlements. Another benefit is low taxes. Some jurisdictions are called tax havens due to the level of taxation that depends on the jurisdiction: tax exemptions, flat taxes, 0% capital gains tax, etc. The other advantage is related to international expansion when a company encounters many legal and bureaucratic issues in its homeland. Other benefits include: lower costs of doing business, tax deferral, compounding of deferred tax profits, easy annual reporting, multiple revenue streams, VAT savings on services, and anonymity.

Normally, the benefits to be derived from an offshore company depend on the jurisdiction of the offshore company and to some extent also on the laws of the country of residence of the owner of the company. Because of this, business people need to be mindful of the offshore jurisdiction they choose and take into account the local laws of that country.

Incorporation procedures for offshore companies
There are only a few basic steps that need to be taken to incorporate a company in Hong Kong, Belize, Seychelles or St Kitts & Nevis. First, the cost of the basic services needed to start a business must be covered, which includes a certificate of incorporation, a resolution to rent an office and a directory of directors (approximately €700). Second, there is an additional fee for privacy; depending on the chosen law firm (approx. 400 €). There is also a fee for opening a bank account with personal presence, which is required to open it for the sake of the businessman's security, a fee for obtaining a logo, rubber stamp, seal, name tag, as well as fees for apostille, virtual offices, etc. A person must provide their personal credit card details and contact information. There is also a mandate to be signed, which specifies who has the right to control the opened bank account, add and remove signers and close it. It depends on the articles of association of the company.

Frequently, the above services may also optionally include the formation of international trading companies, the provision of a registered agent, the provision of company management, document preservation and company administration services, governance, equity participation, the formation of offshore funds, as well as assistance with the licensing of Offshore insurance includes companies and offshore banks, offshore bank account setup, virtual office services and corporate searches. These services can be offered and provided by professionals such as high net worth individuals, private entrepreneurs, professional advisors, accountants and legal advisers working in local businesses of local jurisdictions in Hong Kong, Belize, Seychelles or St Kitts and Nevis etc.

Know Your Client, also known as KYC, refers to numerous due diligence activities carried out not only by financial institutions but also by other regulated companies in order to obtain all relevant information about their clients before and during doing business with them. Each finance and business unit is responsible for adopting and implementing various KYC procedures and regulations.

Know Your Client's policies typically include procedures such as:
Collecting and analyzing a person's identity information and investigating the true beneficiary of the company and business accounts
Name comparison with lists of political parties (search for politically exposed persons or PEPs)
Determine a customer's likelihood of committing money laundering, terrorist financing, identity theft, or other criminal offenses
Creation of expectation profiles based on the transaction behavior of a customer and monitoring of deviations from this profile
The fight against money laundering, also known as AML, is a set of laws, regulations, and other practices designed to prevent the practice of generating income from illegal activities. Typically, money launderers hide the true source of their income through a series of steps that make it appear that money has been legitimately made from illegal activities. The Anti-Money Laundering Guidelines are designed to help institutions identify and investigate potential cases.

Globalization and the global information exchange system
KYC and AML guidelines are designed to provide solutions to eliminate the numerous risks that arise from the fact that financial institutions do not know their customers. On the other hand, these guidelines also tend to contradict the general expectations of an individual regarding confidentiality and privacy.

With the rapid advance of globalization over the past few decades, safety concerns have become a top priority not only for national regulators, but also for the international community in general. In response to growing concerns about money laundering, an intergovernmental organization called the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) was established during the G7 summit in Paris in 1989, which shortly thereafter issued recommendations on money laundering and terrorist financing. All recommendations are to be implemented at national level through laws and other legally binding measures. In addition to the Know Your Client and anti-money laundering procedures described above, the FATF Recommendations require states to cooperate internationally and share relevant information in investigations.

A new international standard called AEI or Automatic Exchange of Information will come into force in participating countries to ensure that tax authorities exchange information about taxpayers' bank accounts. The main aim of the AEI is to make tax evasion impossible. The AEOI stipulates that banks must report information about bank and custody accounts to the domestic tax authorities. This information is then exchanged with the tax authorities of the AEI partner countries.

Possible solutions to protect confidentiality
Some jurisdictions consider divulging an account holder's name to be a criminal act. The privacy of the customers of a bank is protected by law and, by its very nature, is equated with the confidentiality obligation between doctor and patient or lawyer and customer. Although privacy is seen as a fundamental principle and highly protected in these jurisdictions, law enforcement authorities may be given access to relevant information as part of a criminal investigation.

Unless criminal charges have been made, however, offshore banks offer the highest level of confidentiality and security. Offshore banking jurisdictions are designed to protect assets from domestic litigation and other civil matters such as disputed estates or divorce. An even higher level of confidentiality and anonymity is achieved through other asset holding vehicles - for example international business companies and offshore trusts.

Another way to increase your privacy is to use a nominee so that your name does not appear in the company register as the owner of your company (nominee services). However, any bank that requires disclosure of the company's beneficiaries would still see your name on the list.