How to open a foreign bank account without a bank reference.
Most bankers want a reference on you mainly "for
the record" The world is full of swindlers and
con men who pretend to be someone else in order
to divert (i.e. steal) funds that don't belong to
them. Bankers do not need the aggravation of
being involved with customers who immerse them in
litigation or unfavorable publicity.
If you come in with a simple story, explaining
why you want a secret account and if you plan no
fancy or illegal financial shenanigans, most
banks in offshore banking centers will accept
your account upon a mere showing of a passport.
Most inderviduals with tax or domestic problems
do not want any foreign banks contacting any
professionals or bankers in their home country.
If you mention the common problems of possible
divorce and the avoidance of confiscatory
taxation, most "offshore" bankers will give you
an understanding ear. None will ever want to be
helpful to common criminals, terrorists, drug
dealers etc. If they are hard nosed or do not
like your looks or smell, they may insist on some
sort of letter of introduction or reference. For
a reference letter that will be acceptable
everywhere, often it is possible to look up the
name of an accountant or lawyer in the country of
your banking passport (if you are using a
different name and details to your own, and have
certain identity pertaining to this new
identity), and to obtain a letter addressed" To
whom it may concern". This letter says merely
that "Mr. Curt Customer has been a valued client
for X years and is highly recommended". If you
mention to your new banker that you wish to keep
your new account a secret from everyone in your
home country, the banker - if he has any sense of
ethics, will never check your reference. You can
point-blank ask him if he intends to call your
reference giver, and if he says yes, then say,
you'll have to take your business elsewhere as
you'd regard this as a serious breach of your
confidentiality. Normally, your new banker has
his document "for the file", and that is enough
for him.
If your new potential banker does not like your
looks, your attitude, or the fact that you are
starting off by bringing in large sums of cash,
he may reject your business. Thus it is best to
make an appointment well in advance, come in to
merely discuss the possibility of opening a
substantial account. Then shut up and let the
banker sell you. Perhapes you make the first
deposit with a small amount of cash, say $20,000.
If you need to deposit more, use checks you have
purchased for cash or travellers checks acquired
at another bank in the same town, made payable to
your name (or new name if using one different to
yours), and once your account has been accepted,
made to the order of your new bank.
After an account is once opened, it is easier to
feed it with cash (even in a country where cash
deposits are monitored or restricted) by making a
larger number of smaller cash deposits in other
branches of the same bank and also by depositing
checks you have purchased for cash. Or you can
make several cash deposits to new accounts at
other banks and then consolidate by making bank
transfers from other banks in the same town. You
can simply ask at a branch if there are any
restrictions or reporting requirements in that
particular country in connection with cash
deposits.
We suggest you might have favorable answers in
Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Gibralter, Germany,
and Austria - to name a few names, but be careful
in any EU country which since July 1992 has to
report any amount over 15,000 ECU's ($20,000)
paid in or out in cash.
