Offshore Bank Accounts

Sally Wright reviews the interest rate strategies employed by the offshore deposit-takers offering the top returns

Each year, as regular readers will know, Investment International publishes its Offshore Deposit-Taker Awards. The 2000 awards, which will be published in the February issue of the magazine, are nearly upon us, so now is the time to give a round-up of what happened in 1999.

Last February Northern Rock strode home with first place in both the sterling instant access and term account and US-dollar term account categories. Since then the deposit-takers have been battling against low interest rates across the board, to the extent that next year’s race is likely to be much closer. Needless to say, the deposit-takers mentioned in this article are amongst those still in with a good chance of walking away with an award.
The Investment International annual awards reward those offshore banks and building societies based in the major sterling offshore centres - the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Alderney and Jersey - for consistently superior offshore interest rate returns over the year.

Offshore Bank Accounts - Awards

These awards aim to highlight the consistently superior long-term interest rates of deposit-takers. While you, as a depositor, may be well aware of current interest rates on particular accounts, these are subject to fairly regular fluctuations. Rates of interest on such accounts usually rise and fall along with bank rates, unless the deposit-taker has decided to keep ahead of its competitors by taking some of the impact itself.

Offshore Bank Accounts & Depositors