How to conduct an international business with an Eastern passport?
If you, as an entrepreneur, have an eastern passport, you may encounter an unpleasant attitude towards yourself in the West. For example, the United Kingdom, according to recent data, may initiate in the near future a procedure for reviewing the legality of investment visas, which were previously issued to holders of such passports.
If talking about the past, the time when all banking transactions were carried out quickly and without a “headache”, and the interaction of Eastern clients with world financial institutions was quick, you can feel the real difference. Accounts were opened both with a passport and without it; no additional documents were required from clients.
Large investors from the East were offered to cheaply purchase any company. It was not necessary to register it in their own name, but simply manage it as a company without a host, through an open account in its name. In this case, it was easy to open an account for any invented name, or for the real name of a third party.
The account was managed by a proxy. To do this, you must have just known the code, passing the identification was very easy. Even the financial institutions of the most developed countries did not then pay enough attention to controlling the financial transactions of their clients. Since 1993, banks received the right to independently identify suspicious transactions and report on them. In 1994, the fight against money laundering became the main topic of a special conference.
The budgets of the most economically stable countries have undergone dramatic changes. By the end of the 90s, the budgets of the United States and many leading European countries became scarce. Then, the governments of these leading powers decided to pay close attention to taxes, from which many citizens were able to successfully evade through the use of anonymous and offshore accounts. One-day firms also received their portion of attention from the inspection bodies.
Further, when banks lost the status of sole investment hubs, they actively took up investment funds and companies. Worldwide computerization has become the second cause of change. Since 2000, most of the financial transactions of banks have been successfully automated, employees of the back office and middle office were reduced at an incredible rate. The staff of supervisory authorities was also reduced.
By mid-2017, in the UK and other European countries, over 60% of all posts were related to compliance departments.
Even after successfully passing all the procedures, clients should understand that every 6-12 months, the specialists of the compliance departments will contact them with new checks.
In order not to get into trouble, here are some recommendations to all investors who do not want to lose their money:
- For all transactions with brokers and through banks, always take a document confirming these transactions, and do not throw it away;
- Be especially carefully and accurately implement your property;
- When selling a property through a “cell”, after receiving the money, deposit it into your bank account, and make sure that the statement indicates which property you received these funds for;
- Did you receive the money by inheritance or as a result of the division of property and its sale upon divorce? Remember - you will be asked to confirm the origin of this money;
- When entering into a loan relationship with third parties, do not forget to take personal and charter documents from them;
- If you have money whose origin you can’t document, an excellent option would be to “run” this money through the sale of property;
- Use the services of a specialist with rich experience working with foreign banks and accounts. They will help you create an impeccable compliance dossier, and will also assist with making the necessary changes.
