Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

An offshore financial center is a place (city or country) to which foreign currency (Eurocurrency) is drawn for deposit. Offshore financial centers usually offer lower tax rates, more confidentiality for transactions, a variety of financial services and security, and lower rates of interest for loans to multinational companies. The most important offshore financial centers are located in Bahrain, the Bahamas and Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, London, New York, Singapore, and Switzerland. A point of confusion may be associated with the term offshore . It does not mean an island nation, but rather that the currency center is in another country than most of the parties transacting business there. See also tax haven ... log in or subscribe to read full text