Offshore Financial Centre - List of Main Offshore Financial Centres

List of Main Offshore Financial Centres

The list of jurisdictions considered by the IMF to be OFCs is published online. Many offshore financial centres are current or former British colonies or Crown Dependencies, and often refer to themselves simply as offshore jurisdictions. By some measures, there are more countries that are offshore financial centres than not but the following jurisdictions are considered the major destinations for offshore finance:

• Bermuda, which is market leader for captive insurance, and also has a strong presence in offshore funds and aircraft registration.

• British Virgin Islands, which has the largest number of offshore companies.

• Cayman Islands, which has the largest value of Assets under management in offshore funds, and is also the strongest presence in the U.S. securitisation market.

• Jersey is the most international of the British Crown dependencies, all of which can be counted as offshore centres. Jersey has particularly strong banking and funds management sectors and a high concentration of professional advisers including lawyers and fund managers.

• Luxembourg, which is the market leader in Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities (UCITS, pronounced YOU-sits) and is believed to be the largest offshore Eurobond issuer, although no official statistics confirm this.

• New Zealand, the most remote jurisdiction, has the advantage of being a true primary jurisdiction but with a tough but practical regulatory regime. It is well positioned for the Asian market but retains close ties to Europe.

• Singapore has recently risen in stature as a centre for wealth management and ranked fourth in the world in the 2009 Global Financial Centres Index. The state is a hub for hedge funds and its private banking industry is growing at a rate of 30 per cent annually.

The following prominent offshore centres now specialise in certain niche markets:

• Bahamas, which has a considerable number of registered vessels. The Bahamas used to be the dominant force in the offshore financial world, but fell from favour in 1970s after independence.

• Panama, which is a significant international maritime centre. Although Panama (with Bermuda) was one of the earliest offshore corporate domiciles, Panama lost significance in the early 1990s. Panama is now second only to the British Virgin Islands in volumes of incorporations.

See also the list of Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories (FATF Blacklist)