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Ecuador Private Banking

by Gisela Martinez

Ecuador's Big Plus - Ecuador is not signing any OECD tax treaties and is not even giving lip service to the OECD. This means they have no intention on sharing any information regarding taxes at all. Your privacy will be protected. Ecuador has bank secrecy and anonymous bearer share corporations. We have a law office in Ecuador to service our clients specifically for corporations and banking.

The Bank: The bank we use (http://www.bancoterritorial.com), located in Guayaquil, Ecuador. We have a very close relationship with this bank. It is a 123-year-old bank, built in 1886. Ecuador's national currency is the dollar, and you can receive wires in either Dollars or Euros. The bank pays out up to 5% interest. In addition, there is online banking. The bank has 25 branches through Ecuador. It is a full commercial bank, not an offshore bank. Ecuador is not considered to be a tax haven yet they do not tax any offshore-derived income.

Ecuador Bad News - When you take money out of the country of Ecuador there is a 1% tax to the government. We feel this is worth it to avoid the privacy invasive actions of the G-20 nations that drive the OECD with their tax information sharing agreements. The farce is Saudi Arabia is one of the G-20 and also a full dictatorship with a reigning monarch and they refuse to cooperate with the OECD and sign any tax treaties. Come on they don't even try to cover it up anymore.

Is Ecuador Going to Get Blacklisted - This could happen but then they will also have to blacklist the Russian Federation, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Abu Dabi, Qatar, Ukraine, Lithuania, Nigeria, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Suriname. Ghana, Egypt, Jordan, Jamaica, Lebanon, Syria, North Korea, Yemen, Oman, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Romania, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Peru, Paraguay, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and many African under developed nations whoa re all not signing the OECD treaties. I do not think they are going to blacklist Ecuador or any of the other countries. The high tax countries will sign the treaties and the countries they are close with or can bully around. We do feel Ecuador is probably the best choice of the countries that are even refusing to give lip service to the OECD.

Ecuador Corporate Bank Account - What is done is an anonymous Ecuador Corporation, Sociedad Anonima or an S.A is formed. The names of the owners of this corporation do not appear in any public registry or database, thus they are anonymous. Ownership is vested in the hands of the ones who possess the share certificates for the corporation. The lawyer who is the registered agent in Ecuador retains one share of stock and you get the other 99 shares. We generally use 100 shares of stock. You also get a General Power of Attorney over the corporation which is a private document not recorded anywhere. The bank account is put in the name of the corporation. You are listed as the signatory and beneficiary owner of the bank account at the bank but this is protected by bank secrecy punishable under penalty of law criminally and civilly. When you send and receive a wire transfer only the corporate name appears in the wire instructions. The bank has online banking. You can bank in US dollars and can also receive Euros by wire transfer. The bank will issue secured Visa cards but they need to have a personal name on them. The limits for the Visa card can be up to $5,000,000 and $5,000 a day from ATM machines. We also have other anonymous Visa card options available:

Anonymous Visa Card Options

The Ecuador corporate bank account can be opened quite quickly if we use a shelf corporation. A shelf corporation is a never used corporation sitting on our shelf. The time frame for this is 7-10 days to have the bank account opened with a shelf corporation. You do not get to pick the name of the corporation is the downside with using a shelf corporation. If you form a corporation from start you can pick the name but it will take about 3 - 4 weeks to have the corporation formed and the bank account opened. The minimum deposit for the bank account in $5000. There is no maximum balance. The online banking comes after the account is opened and funded. Takes about an additional week. The Visa card also comes after the funding of the account. There is a security deposit required of 130% of the credit line associated with this Ecuador Visa card. If you have a $10,000 credit line you need to have a security deposit of $13,000 at the bank in a segregated account bearing interest. The money stays into the security account for as long as one has the Visa card active, plus 30 days. The fee for the Ecuador Corporation and bank account is $3000. Fee is the same with a shelf corporation or forming a new corporation.

International Trust Agreement Ecuador Corporate Bank Accounts - This is a more secure method of banking where the bank does not know who you are. The law firm acts as the signatory and beneficial owner of the bank account in Ecuador. You still have the General Power of Attorney for the corporation, 99% of the share certificates and the online banking access codes. The big difference is the bank does not know who you are thus they cannot turn your name and identity documents over to any requesting entity. The process begins with an International Trust Agreement signed between you and the law firm. The relationship is as follows: you are the Trustor and the Law Firm is the Trustee, which holds assets for the Trustor. This protects you as well as the law firm.
If you would like to protect the corporate account from wire trails associated with your other bank accounts, you can wire the funds into our attorney client trust account. If somebody inquires why you sent the funds you can respond "Attorney Client Privilege". We will move the funds into your corporate account within 24 hours. Such banking arrangements can be established not only in Ecuador but also in Guatemala, Costa Rica and Mexico as well. If the bank does not know who you are the jurisdiction becomes less important for information sharing purposes.

Trust Agreement Protection - The weak link in the chain of bank secrecy is the banks themselves. Banks are statutory animals that must follow the statues and if they call for opening their records they cannot protest against this, they must just comply automatically. If the bank does not know who you are they cannot share this information. We do know and understand that Ecuador is in no such tax information sharing agreement but we are mentioning this not to be confusing but to explain what is taking place in the world. Admittedly, it can appear confusing.

Banks also can be compelled to share information under MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties). These treaties concern themselves with real criminality (not taxes) like kidnapping, blackmail, narcotics, murder, gun running, etc. Ecuador has no MLAT with the USA, Canada or UK. Guatemala has no MLAT with any country. For a MLAT to apply the criminal violation must be illegal in both countries. There must be a criminal case on file in the national courts of the requesting country. The requesting country must show why they need the information to prosecute their case and why this is the only way to obtain such information. Not so easy to use a MLAT and can be very time consuming.

Client Protection From Theft - Because of the ITA (International Trust Agreement) you have legal recourse against the lawyer and the law firm if anything were to happen to your money. The lawyer would go to jail. In the old days we would assist clients with opening bank accounts in the smaller Caribbean Island jurisdictions. They would say what if the bank steals my money? Today we hear the same thing regarding the law firm. If you stay with a bank in a high tax police state what do you do if the government or an unscrupulous law firm takes your money out of the bank which the courts are only too happy to let them do? It never seems to be perfect!

Trust Agreement Distress Clause - Perhaps the best feature of an ITA is a Distress Clause. This is left open to you to decide what you deem to be distress—a divorce, bankruptcy, an information request, etc. You can also decide what the law firm should do in such a case. The funds can be temporarily removed from your control while the distress is ongoing. The jurisdiction the funds are kept in can also be changed when the distress starts. These distress clauses can be custom created.

Credit Cards: The bank issues its own credit cards from Visa. You must have the full amount of the desired credit limit plus 30% in the credit account. For example, if you would like a limit of $1,000 a day, you would need to have $1,300 deposited. The money is taken out of your main account and the security deposit will remain while you have the card plus 30 days. We also have anonymous Visa cards available that must be loaded by wire transfer that have no name on them that are issued by a bank in Mexico. The cards are delivered anywhere in the world by courier.

Payment and Fees - The fee for an Ecuador Corporation and bank account is $3000. This is with you as the signatory on the bank account. The fee for an Ecuador corporate bank account with the law firm as the signatory on the bank account is $6000 and includes the International Trust Agreement and the corporation. If the law firm is the signer on the bank account there is an additional fee of 3% applied to the funds coming into the bank account. Payment can be by wire transfer or western union. After we receive required documents we will send you payment instructions.

Documents - We require a notarized copy of a passport and driver license. This can be a scan sent in an email. We do NOT require any bank reference letters, no lawyer reference letters and no utility bills. Upon receipt of the required documents (notarized copies of your drivers license and passport) we will send you instructions on how to send the money. The fastest and most secure way is by Western Union. It only takes an hour. It is secure you can pay Western Union by cash. Most of the clients use a bank wire, which usually takes 2-3 days to arrive.

Order Form: Please go here to order from our secure encrypted online order form:

Secure Order Form

Questions: If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us by email, phone, Skype, or encrypted chat. Thanks.

http://www.panamalaw.org

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