WORLDVIEW
FURTHER AFIELD
According to Brendan Stewart, Regional Head
at Investec, the vast sums that are transferred
abroad from South African accounts every
year are positive proof that South Africans are
in need of banking solutions that make such
transactions simple and safe.
“We have become truly global citizens;
we travel, we educate our children overseas,
we buy property in other countries, we
invest globally. People are no longer ‘single
country’ anymore, and nor are their finances,”
he comments.
For many, the answer to this challenge lies
in opening an offshore transactional account.
However, this comes with its own set of
obstacles; in fact, Stewart observes that this is
far from an easy process.
With every country in the world adhering
to its own banking legislation in order to
limit criminal activity like money laundering,
barriers to entry in this extremely regulated
environment are high.
This means that would-be users face a
lengthy application period, made more
complicated by the fact that, as non-residents,
they would be considered a significant risk for
money laundering by the country in questi