Hon. Andrew Fahie said that the Government plans to engage members of the Financial Services Industry to help provide solutions on how Government’s support services and policies can be improved to better support the industry.

Why continue to support (and with what army?) an industry that is in a war of extermination conducted by the most powerful nations in the world, instead of changing the business to something more profitable and more US and EU friendly?

This industry needs a profitable replacement, not to waste more time and money on giving life-support to an already dead business.

Financial Secretary, Glenroy Forbes, has told legislators that the industry had seen a $30M revenue loss and that the decline in revenue is expected to continue unless something can be done to arrest it. Glenroy Forbes is right. This industry is technically dead, and what’s left of it will totally die off sooner or later.

Premier Fahie has indicated that Financial Services is the main driver of Government revenue and major contributor to the economy.

Here is my take.

The BVI Financial Services industry of today is dead. To form a company in USA or UK costs only $60 with just a few clicks online and with no questions asked. To form a BVI company costs over $1,000, takes ages to get it registered, and only after endless intrusive and invasive (but not effective) questioning (the cumbersome KYC process).

With this luxury $1,000 company it is impossible even to open a bank account anymore as the worldwide banking system is blocking by default every off-shore related company. While with a UK or a US company you can get a first-class banking service by default.

The only benefit that the BVI company can give in exchange for charging this 3000% premium pricing, is to hide the names of the shareholders (the same as the US company does for only $60; but not so the case UK and other countries). There are of course a few more or less legitimate reasons to hide ownership, so it’s not always done only for the reason that 99% of offshore companies are registered for these much more expensive fees: tax avoidance and illegal business activities.

But the most powerful nations in the world decided to obliterate this offshore business, as you are eating their lunch.

And, if this is what they want, this what they will get, regardless of the denials from all the industry-clerks that getting their salaries from pretending that this business has any future.

So the main BVI income source is almost dead and there’s no way back.

It’s not dead because BVI FSC did something worse than other money-laundering services can do via London, Delaware or Ireland. In fact the way BVI Financial Services has operated in the past year or so is much cleaner and makes it more difficult - but not too hard- to use a BVI company to facilitate financial crimes.

I would estimate that around 99.9% of tax evasion worldwide is done without any BVI link. In fact the biggest tax avoidance worldwide is done using the mainstream jurisdictions, global banks, and using at least one of the Big Four – the world’s global tax-evasion architects. Those are the luxury companies that advise governments how to tax the poor people, and advice the rich people how to avoid those taxes.
Here is how it works.

The sounds-good reason vs the real reason

However, the war against BVI Financial Services (as well as against all the other small off-shore and CBI countries) is not about AML.

The real rich do not pay taxes anyway, nowhere, and the law is not really against this. "By the people, for the people" it's just a marketing slogan. In real life the law is dictating by the very few and for the the very few, you know how it works. The real rich pay the best of their dirty money to write the laws...

This industry is all about exclusivity. The exclusivity to control who will be allowed to enter (tax) heaven's door and who will not. And the big nations have decided to stop letting BVI to hold a key to the back door to heaven.

It is a war to monopolies and centralist this industry. The way the OECD, the IMF and the other AML-Jihadists see it, this is a sophisticated business that must belong to the white-collar, white elites. "We the people" and you’re just an African, right?

OECD Hypocrisy avoiding the fact that fighting corruption should start with transparent government spending, not beneficiaries owners.

Taxes are, after all, only a service fee. This is the fee a citizen should pay for the services they gets from their government. We are all happy to pay the service fee for our electricity, water, internet, and gas station. We never avoid it. It’s a fair deal. And no OCED citizen will even dream to avoid taxes if the services they are getting from their government in exchange was transparent - reflecting the real value for that tax-money. So if you stop paying for a service and decide to pay another service provider for it, blame the bad service or the poor value, not the new service provider who provides better value for his services.

Stop calling it tax avoidance. There is no such a thing. it's a fake-billing and transparency issue only. Show citizens what is the fair value you give them for their taxes and they will all pay it with pleasure as they pay for their internet, iTunes and food.

Why Free?

More over, police and law enforcement in every country cost money. A lot of money for the important job - complicated and resources-consuming- they do to protect the society.

The practice of the OECD that countries such as BVI must police the OECD citizens FOR FREE, is nothing but robbery of local resources to benefit only foreign interests (in effect, it’s a new form of enslavement).

To be fair and more effective, the OECD should say “we’ll pay you the company registration fee for every application you reject”.

No justice is being served when what they tell BVI is: “give me your food for free so I can be even more fat”.

The ultimate sanction of OECD countries when moving against offshore jurisdictions is always the same: blacklist.

First Question: why Black???

The absolute majority of the biggest financial crimes in the world are committed by white men. Rich white men. And the most moral and decent societies are traditionally black. Religion-wise, family-values wise, hard-working-wise, education-wise, culture-wise.

None of the offshore jurisdictions committed genocide, enslaved, robbed, invaded or raped others to make their own country. yet, as usual, It's always the ones with the dirty hands pointing fingers.

So just for the sake of factual linguistics, let’s call the bad list the “White List” and the Black List should symbolize the hard-working good people, not the bad guys.

But money, unfortunately, is not about justice, but about power. The more power you use against others, the more and more money you get. The more and more modest and decent hard work you do, the less money you have for you and your family. I am not saying this is good thing (it’s clearly not) or that I like it (I clearly don’t), but this is the reality of today’s world.

So to be practical, the way to deal with the hypocrisy and the unfair financial-terrorism against BVI is not to continue to fight to the last breath with the EU and USA. It will be a loss even before the game has started. Let them tax their poor citizens and let them rig their systems for the top 1% for as long as they can. Why should you care? Do not fight against them, and don’t try to eat the lion’s lunch.

If you can’t win the game, don't break the rules - change the game!

Start with a bold, smart and obvious decision: admit that this FS business is dead. Acknowledging the real problem is already a big step forward towards a solution. And once you’re ready to admit that reality, let’s think about something new. Something innovative. Something that will make so much more money, without eating any lion’s lunch.

DO NOT help anybody to trick the EU nor USA. This might work for a short term but will end up painfully at the end. Moreover: do not underestimate how aggressively angry they will become also if you take from them the exclusivity to decide who else from other countries will be allowed (or not) to operate corruption/drugs/arm-dealing, etc. OK?

There are so many creative, immediately profitable, and simple-to-do-businesses that a colony such as BVI can do - much more so than dying offshore financial services. Businesses that would enable BVI to become not only rich but also respectable, able to hold its head up high, instead of parading around the world marked with the stigma of money-laundering.

But for this, you cannot expect the FSC people to find you a solution. They are wonderful, talented decent people that unfortunately - and not because of their fault - became the problem, not the solution!

I would say to BVI Government: you should turn to an outsider. Not Lorna, not Robert, not their wonderful staff, not Harneys, not the Big 4, not more of the same. They are victims of this problem, not the solution. The solution should also solve their declining revenue problem, not only yours. They - as well as all BVI-related private and small service providers - need a new way of thinking, outside the box. They need proper food on the table, not another empty press release with the usual fake-news.

The financial war against BVI is not new, and the way it will end is very clear. Whatever you do to satisfy the “good guys” requirements, they will keep inventing new ones and will never stop until the last BVI offshore company is delisted. You were eating their lunch, and they have not only the right but the unlimited power to stop that, and to kill off your offshore business. Totally. 

Wake up! You have no army, and even your independent status is not what it seems.

I do understand the resistance the FSC people have against new ideas. They are comfortable with what they know; no one is a naive teenager keen to make change for change’s sake. Just as the thirsty man walking in a desert imagines water on the horizon until he dies (Fata Morgana), they genuinely hope that they can save their industry if they will follow the never-ending requirements that are in fact just the latest but certainly not the last step in totally killing off this business.

“If it works, don’t try to fix it”, they say to anybody who is pushing for change. But it’s clearly not working, and by now what is left is so small and difficult that it’s not even worth fixing.

The solution is outside the box

I offered my ideas, donation and technologies for free to the previous government, as an immediate solution the day after Irma. Like a whale swimming to the beach for dying they ignored and in fact rejected all my help, "because you are not famous and we work only with big (dirty) names". They saw my alternative business and fintech (not crypto!) offers it as a risk to their corporate services.

I told them years ago that their core business was going to die. They said that I am wrong and it’s just a matter of few changes and negotiations, then everything will be OK. And it has just got worse, and worse.

Albert Einstein used to say that insanity is to do the same thing again and again and to expect different results. He also said that you cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it.

Are you really looking for solution, or just trying to do something that will look good today on Facebook, as there will be no tomorrow?

Are you aware that my ideas will provide plenty of legitimate income for all BVI government and people?

Spring Times

The BVI should not compete against the world's biggest economies and especially not against The US and the City of London (The EU will collapse sooner or later anyway. It's not working, unfortunately).

Otherwise, it’s just a question of time before BVI will also ace aggressive political and social unrest. The BVI should wisely take real action to totally change its business model from facilitating money-laundering to provide real value to the world and to its own citizens. To become a proper part of the global community and to stop being the naughty rogue boys of the world’s financial system.

Do not help the FSC to dig their grave even deeper. Help them out of this problematic business and give them a better one!

It's about time to start thinking about long-term and sustainable income sources. To stop the dangerous fantasy of eating the lion’s lunch. And to start thinking about reinventing BVI as a friendly and rich jurisdiction, as it should be, and easily can be.