Opening an offshore bank account:
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Many offshore banks require a positive proof of address for new account holders, so get those utility bills ready. Or don't.

OFFSHORE-FOX.COM
with Alex Hanson

Bank references are not the only paperwork you've got to get ready in order to open an offshore bank account. Utility bills -- such as gas or electricity bills in your name -- are routinely requested as a positive confirmation of your actual residential address.

And again, the practice has its roots in common law. To a Frenchman, the idea of providing a gas bill to open a bank account may seem absurd -- but not so for his English cousin across the Channel.

Where civil law jurisdictions typically maintain centralised population registers -- and in many it is an offence not to inform the bureaucrats of your change of address -- common law administrations seem to be less concerned about their citizens' whereabouts. As a result, banks in, say the UK, cannot refer to any "official" database to confirm the address of new account holders. And just as they rely on references to compensate for the lack of any reliable mechanisms to confirm identity, they rely on utility bills to confirm residential address -- the thinking being that if you are paying electricity bills at a given address, you are probably living there.

It is easy to understand why this practice spilled over to a substantial number of offshore banking havens, particularly those in the Caribbean: many are English-speaking, common-law based ex-colonies of the United Kingdom.

If you live in a common law country, you probably think nothing of letting your local bank have one of your utility bills -- you have probably done it at least once. But you may not be so happy about doing the same to open a private offshore bank account.

And you would be right.

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