On Mon, 31 Jul 1995, Phil Fraering wrote:
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 12:12:16 +0800 (HKT) From: Enzo Michelangeli <enzo@ima.com>
How could it be worse than with the U.S. of A.?? ;-)
OK... think about Venezuela. It has bad inflation. It has laws against converting local currency to US dollars on the black market, which is basically defined as any agency/person/corporate entity exchanging at a worse rate than the government rate (at least in Venezuela itself; [...]
Hey, I was joking: even without arriving to such extremes, banking in Europe is, more often than not, a much worse experience than in USA. My point, anyway, was that there are many offshore banking centres where you may keep accounts denominated in USD, Deutsche Marks, Swiss Francs or other reputable currencies, and also choose branches of reputable international banks, even American ones if you like (Citybank, Chase and many other are represented world-wide). Personally, as bank I like the HSBC Holdings group or other "British-overseas" institutions like Standard Chartered, and as haven currency the Singapore Dollar (due to the very strong balance sheet of that country). In any case, the depositor may choose. Unfortunately, the costs of international transfers of funds are still pretty high, even between branches of the same bank. If I remit funds from Hong Kong to another country, my bank charges me HKD 100. (around USD 20) per operation, flat. In other countries there are additional commissions proportional to the amount (0.125% from Singapore, 0.1% from Macau etc). Sometimes, charges are levied on incoming remittances too. That situation is partly dependent on the regulatory framework, and partly on the oligopolistic nature of the banking business. In any case, it makes international transfers not viable for the settlement of small bills; that may be the reason why First Virtual is still stuck with USA-only merchant accounts. Now, my main objection to opening a US account is that it's unclear whether or not, for simply receiving payments there, a non-resident and non-citizen account holder like myself incurs in any tax liability with Uncle Sam's Inland Revenue. Can anybody on this list shed light on the issue? Last time I checked, the guys at FV weren't sure either.