Banking overseas is more challenging today than it’s ever been and more challenging all the time thanks to the constantly changing landscape. One week, one bank will open an account for Americans. The next week it won’t. Another bank that required a US$100,000 minimum bank balance increases that requirement to US$500,000… and then reduces it […]
Kathleen and I flew from Panama to Belize City Tuesday morning for this week’s Live and Invest in Belize Conference. Passing through the airport, we picked up a copy of the local paper. Big topic in the press and on everybody’s mind in this country is banking. Belize is being beaten up and knocked around […]
I have more than a dozen bank accounts outside the United States, most associated with various businesses and investments. I have two accounts for every entity, but few entities have more than two. Why would anyone want or need more than two accounts for a single entity? The de-risking era is answering that question for […]
Yesterday, day one of the Global Asset Protection and Wealth Summit Lief is hosting in Panama City this week, he and I had lunch with banker friends in town for the conference. One, with 30 years of experience in the global banking industry, sat down, looked around the table, and said: “I wish I hadn’t […]
I’m reviewing and clarifying my ideas related to the Five Flags theory of diversification in preparation for my opening remarks at the Wealth Summit I’m hosting in Panama in October. If you’re new to the idea, the Five Flags are to do with residency, citizenship, banking, assets, and business. Not everyone needs all five flags […]
Five years ago, when the U.S. FATCA law had just been passed and the effects it would have on non-U.S. banks were a hot topic for speculation, a banker I knew from Andorra made a remark to me along the lines of: “We’ll all go back to goat herding before we roll over for the […]
Here’s another reason to have at least two bank accounts overseas: So you can move your money when one of them gets shut down. Years ago I had an account with the local Panama operation of Stanford Bank. I woke up one day to find that Stanford Bank had been taken over by Panama’s Banking […]
We got right to the point: Diversification. It’s the surprisingly simple answer to the sometimes seemingly impossible-to-process question: How do we survive the current age…and the even more troubling one that may be coming?
A friend living in Thailand wrote this week to tell me about a rumor going around in Chiang Mai. Word on the street is that the IRS is checking up on banks in that city to confirm that they’re FATCA-compliant. At this point, banks worldwide aren’t required to be sending account information for every account […]
What would an ideally globally diversified financial life look like? I could imagine as many answers to that question as people asking it. However, I’d also identify key common denominators that should be part of any global diversification strategy. If you’re just getting started at this, here’s the most important thing to understand: This doesn’t […]
Offshore Living Letter is a publication of Live and Invest Overseas. Our goal is to provide timely, actionable information on all things offshore, including: how to go offshore, diversifying your portfolio, wealth creation, protecting your assets, and much more.
