Privacy is a fundamental component of owning private property which is your right as a free global citizen. However, with respect to banking and business, privacy has been (& continues to be) washed away. We are simply an account number on a ledger system that other banks or governments can peer in on and see exactly what you’re doing, with whom, in what amount, when. Between people this is called Voyeuristic Disorder–in the financial world it’s called banking law. Wonder why banking fees are so expensive? It’s because they have to comply to these fanatical laws. I digress.
I’m sure you are here on this site because you’ve thought of beginning international setups. You have thought about going offshore with your banking or corporate structure, or perhaps with buying precious metals for the first time. Chances are your immediate searches first encountered some pretty eye-gripping lingo. “Pay no tax!”, “Hide your Money”, “Safe jurisdiction for ALL of your assets!”, “No reporting, ever!”, “As anonymous as a ghost!” and all the rest of it. Which is largely inflated and meant for you to give them more money!
What makes matters even trickier is that some jurisdictions have carrying their reputation into today as well. Swiss banking has always been known for its banking privacy laws, while relatively that’s true, the reality is that the privacy of banking in Switzerland is coming undone.
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I don’t have fancy office buildings, 3-piece suits nor a whole media team–but what I lack in these I make up for my straight-forwardness and lack of agenda. I factor in matters like culture, history, crime rates (& type), personal experience and full diversification into my advice plans.
Now there’s a whole other separate conversation with respect to privacy in corporate structures (some are completely anonymous, some have privacy of directors, some for shareholders, some for beneficiaries), some activities can be enhanced with certain forms of tech, but we won’t cover that breakdown today.
Privacy Still Kind Of Exists
Rather, I wanted to talk about banking privacy, to such an extent that still exists. There are relatively new bank laws that seek to make your funds completely transparent to the rest of the world–this tool is the Common Reporting Standard or CRS. If you’re reading this, chances are your funds are subject to this ruling and you’re not “hiding” anything. However, there remain some countries (that are still worthy of banking) that are not in such group and therefore are exempt from sharing your information with other banks & governments. This always has been the standard way of doing things.
I will place a star next to the jurisdictions I think are interesting to consider
List
Algeria*
Benin
Belarus*
Bosnia and Herzegovina*
Botswana*
Burkina Faso
Vietnam*
Armenia (planned to join in 2025; delayed)*
Gabon *
Haiti
Guyana *
Guatemala*
Guinea
Honduras
Djibouti
Dominican Republic*
Eswatini
Egypt
Cape Verde*
Cambodia*
Cameroon (planned to join in 2026)
Congo (Republic)
Ivory Coast
Lesotho*
Liberia
Mauritania
Madagascar*
Mongolia*
Namibia*
Niger
Palau*
Papua New Guinea*
Paraguay*
North Macedonia*
El Salvador*
Senegal (planning to join in 2025)
Serbia*
USA (but it has FATCA and other extended BOI reporting)
Tanzania*
Togo
Tunisia (planned to join in 2025)
Uzbekistan*
Philippines*
Chad
This list includes countries that have not yet joined to the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and thus do not participate in the automatic exchange of tax information at the global level. Said another way, financial institutions in these countries are not required to provide information about resident accounts to other CRS member countries (which is the majority of countries and likely the one you are from!).
The reality is that most countries do not really want to be part of the CRS–they literally could not be bothered in maintaining such records, but may join because they are forced by external factors (blackmail or bribery from the cabal).
Open Door Consultancy Tip: make sure how much insurance is covering your bank deposits and never hold funds beyond this amount
Puerto Rico is good too cause they’re non-CRS AND non FATCA since they’re not a United States state, but rather a territory.
Closing
It doesn’t make sense to have all your eggs in one basket, especially in these countries–so you should be thinking about what you can do to gain new exposures.
To protect yourself it makes sense to spread out as much as you can and receive a little bit of privacy in the meantime! I am actively working on this myself!
Again, Are you interested in topics like this? With Open Door Consultancy I generate plans for international planning! Contact me here
