Panama Banking: Is Your Money Safe in a Panama Bank?
Kenneth Rodeislan
Panama City is one of the little know jewels of Central America. The skyline of Panama is literally dotted with enough skyscrapers and bank towers that you would think you were in London or New York city. More importantly, these banking institutions are currently enjoying a renewed interest from foreign investors since they have one of the most stable, secure and private offshore banking industries in the world.
Panama has become the most modern and successful country in Latin America and its international banking center can be described in a similar fashion. The country recently enacted legislation that meets the exacting standards for transparency and regulation, and this obviously was the appeal for the 85+ banks from 35 different countries that can be found in Panama.
Panama's banking and financial sectors made the right choices by supporting the FATF and OECD rules which were enacted to root out international criminals who use the allure of financial privacy to perform illicit activities. This stance has helped Panama to get removed from the uncooperative tax haven list and in conjunction with the real estate boom has led to a renewed prosperity in Panama's banking sector.
Just as the practice occurs in the United States, it has become common practice in Panama to put tighter controls on banks so that they now are reporting all deposits and withdrawals in amounts exceeding $10,000. This control was also implemented as a direct result of the FATF and OECD movements as well. Panama has been removed from the non-cooperative tax haven list and is reaping the rewards.
Panama became very aware that it had to start "cleaning up its image" several years ago, and as a result, they went on a mission to enhance that image and implement the improvements necessary to make them a major player in the offshore banking market. Knowing your customers more thoroughly includes tighter reference requirements as well as fund origination.
Panama has climbed to the top of the offshore banking world and is arguably right behind Switzerland in popularity now. Switzerland gets all the spotlight and Panama is just fine with that. Panama continues to enforce it's banking secrecy laws with vigor as they know their international reputation depends on it.
In the end it's the customers of Panama's offshore banking system that will reap the rewards of their cleanup activities. With an improved reputation and tighter controls this means transactions coming out of Panama will not receive the same level of scrutiny they would if Panama had not taken the steps that were taken. As an offshore banking customer in Panama you will no longer have to worry about your money being incorrectly flagged by the international community monitoring for illicit activity since they know Panama is really screening their banking customers now instead of accepting money from anyone.
Panama's banks and government are doing everything in their power to maintain the good reputation they have built since billions of dollars and over 40,000 Panamanian jobs in the banking industry are at stake. They are not going to break their own rules to deal with a criminal if they can avoid it and happily scrutinize customers more closely when setting up bank accounts.
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For more information regarding the offshore banking industry or to get a Panama bank account please visit the OffshoreLegal.org website.
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