Darlees.com

Jersey & the Isle of Man offer a enormous array of offshore banking & offshore saving accounts that enable you to manage your tax affairs a good deal more simply if you’re eligable to bank offshore . All the major UK banks & building societies are represented & there’re one or two interesting names as yet unknown on the UK high streets that deserve a mention too. Jersey & the Isle of Man offer the security of being well regulated financial environments, the convenience of being part of the UK clearing system which means that for sterling payments at least, the BACS payment system can generally be used for moving funds around, keeping bank charges to a minimum, & generally, free. Of course faster payment channels can be often used too – like CHAPS & SWIFT.

Accounts may commonly be opened in sterling, US dollars $ & Euros . In very rare situations these may even be run as multi-currency accounts, though this tends to be more for the current accounts rather than saving accounts . The interest rates on offer, seem to vary quite widely. By example, the best sterling savings accounts on offer from Bradford & Bingley International & the Alliance & Leicester pay 6.35 & 6.40% respectively on a minimum balance of ?1k without imposing any significant time or fee restrictions on withdrawals, though these top paying accounts are ‘linked’ accounts & money can only be transferred out of them into another account in your name. This compares with the top sterling accounts from HSBC & Barclays paying 5.45% AER (5.75% AER for premier accts) & 6.05% AER respectively, with HSBC & Barclays requiring a minimum balance of ?10K.

Looking at Euro offshore bank accounts, the Bank of Scotland International offers 4.25% on a minimum balance of 35k Euros on their Euro Guaranteed Saver account, HSBCoffer 3.6% on a minimum ?20k balance, the Alliance & Leicester International offers 3.86% on a minimum balance of ?5k, Bradford & Bingley International offer 3.75% tiered, on balances of ?10-49.9k & Barclays offer 2.45% tiered on ?15-75k.

Looking at options for US dollar saving accounts, the headline rate of 5.04% AER for the International Tracker Savings Account from Barclays on a minimum balance of U$20k compares with 4.96% AER from HSBC for their on line saver account. Bradford & Bingley International offer tiered interest on their US dollar account starting at 4.75% on balances of U$10-49.9k & the Alliance & Leicester 5.2% AER on a minimum balance of U$5k for their US dollar savings account. If you can manage to keep your withdrawls to a minimum, Bank of Scotland International have a US dollar account called the Guaranteed Saver that offers 5.5% AER on a minimum balance of U$50k & a restriction of 4 free withdrawls a year.

The other high street players worth considering are The Royal Bank of Scotland who have an interesting multi-currency account, Royalties International for an annual fee of ?150, Lloyds TSB whose sterling offshore current account costs just ?7.50 per month, Abbey International whose sterling call account is a useful fee free option, particularly if you’re searching for a connected account with an offshore bank that clears its own funds (which is necessary for linking with the BBI esaver account for example) & finally, the wildcard Lansbanki Guernsey, part of Landsbanki, Iceland’s largest financial institution that is currently marketing aggressively for new customers & offers a headline rate of 6.5% on its sterling 2 year fixed rate bonds.

Having lived & worked in Australia, UK, US & Singapore, finding my way around the various offshore savings accounts & banking options has been a must. Now I hope to make it a little easier for anyone else trying to wade their way through the wealth of information. With rates & terms & conditions changing all the time, we have created direct links at http://www.offshore-savings-accounts.org.uk to all the major players’ websites at an account-specific level so you can find exactly what you need, when & where you need it… There’re also links here at offshore-savings-accounts.org.uk/currency_exchange.htm to specialist currency exchange companies that handle transactions much more competitively than the high street banks. There is more. There’re some interesting FOREX options here too for anyone with the courage to play that game!

We have also created an environment where you can see which of these banks & building societies is currently hungriest for your business – the concept behind hungry-fish.com – helping you fish where the fish are hungry!

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