London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Sep 09, 2025

VI slips in Vistra report, but still ranks high

VI slips in Vistra report, but still ranks high

The Virgin Islands again ranked highest in importance among offshore financial centres in this year’s Vistra 2030 report, though it declined slightly when compared to onshore jurisdictions, achieving a rating of 2.94 (down from 3.3 in the previous report in 2018) and falling from second to fifth in a ranking of 17 countries and territories.

The report, released every two years by the global corporate services firm, drew upon 620 interviews with industry ex- perts and touched upon the in- stability wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic and other global developments. Respondents rate the importance of each jurisdiction on a scale of one to five, with five being the most important.

For the first time this year, Singapore surpassed Hong Kong to tie for first place with the United Kingdom and the United States — a shift the report’s authors credited to uncertainty over Hong Kong’s future autonomy and Singapore’s push to become more competitive. Hong Kong fell to fourth, just above the VI, and the Cayman Islands’ ranking remained unchanged at sixth.

Slow decline


Forty-three percent of respondents expected offshore centres like the VI to continue to experience a reduction in demand for their services.

Among such jurisdictions, the VI saw the greatest decline in its “importance” ranking over the past decade, losing 1.1 points since its first ranking 10 years ago.

Despite this, Vistra noted that it saw similar responses in
previous surveys, and that the VI and Cayman nevertheless have proven to be extremely resilient.

“In the current climate, the BVI’s role as a neutral intermediary cannot be overstated. Clients can swiftly set up new BVI structures that are globally recognised and accepted for international business,” the report’s authors wrote. “Many such clients are from emerging markets, and it can be helpful for them to use intermediary structures, particularly at a time of international tension.”

For example, in Asia, 75 percent of Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index consists of companies with “direct linkages to the BVI,” the report noted.

Stability, expertise


A combination of stability, expertise and global reach continues to keep the VI and other offshore jurisdictions high in the rankings, according to Vistra.

However, increased global competition and greater compliance and regulatory burdens, particular in light of the European Union’s new economic substance rules, continue to make establishing and maintaining corporate vehicles costlier and more difficult.

“So, while BVI and Cayman have continued to buck the predicted decline of offshore centres over the last decade, might the pressure added by substance legislation be a test too far?” the authors asked.

However, the report concluded, “Jurisdictions such as BVI, Cayman, the Channel Islands and Bermuda will still be thriving 10 years from now.”

Public registers


Amid the VI’s recent agreement to work with the UK to- ward implementing a public register of beneficial ownership by 2023, the report found that the VI has impressed industry practitioners with its Beneficial Ownership Secure Search system, the method already in place to transmit confidential owner- ship information to law enforcement authorities abroad.

Nearly 57 percent of respondents said they believe public registers like the ones used in the UK breach privacy rights, and only 20 percent think they will become a worldwide standard.

However, 60 percent favoured a model where “regulated corporate service providers verify company information and make it available to relevant authorities as required,” such as the BOSSs.

Additionally, for the first time since 2015, industry practitioners were less likely to believe that regulatory cooperation across borders would increase in such realms as registries, information sharing, and tax-accounting standards.

In 2018, 30 percent of respondents predicted that beneficial owners’ privacy would be almost entirely eroded by 2022.

This year, after the UK government’s extension of the deadline for the British over- seas territories and Crown dependencies to enact public registers to 2023, only five percent of respondents think the same.

The report also found that the reasons for establishing offshore entities have changed in the past 10 years.

Rather than privacy and tax planning, clients cited asset protection and facilitating foreign direct investments as the main reasons for establishing entities offshore. Those who re- lied on territories like the VI and Cayman said they most valued “stability, expertise and flexibility.”

Pandemic effects


However, the report does assert that tax-planning services will survive the decade ahead. According to Vistra, because of extensive government intervention in the economy in response to Covid-19, governments may seek to recoup this spending through higher taxes, with corporations and the wealthy the main targets.

But with more challenging demands on offshore services and the greater complexity of global business amid the Covid-19 pandemic, respondents said they were less confident about their firms’ growth prospects, with 38 percent saying they are confident, down from 75 percent in 2018. Only 32 percent were confident about the ease of doing business across borders, down from 61 percent.

Shift onshore?


The question remains how strongly the pandemic will affect offshore, with 30 percent of respondents saying the pandemic would accelerate a shift to midshore and onshore jurisdictions. The rest were divided equally between saying the opposite and being uncertain. “When we launched this study a decade ago, the corpo- rate services industry looked very different,” Jonathon Clifton, Vistra’s regional managing director for Asia- Pacific, said in a press release.

“The industry was heavily fragmented, with a lot of single jurisdiction operators and niche providers. Since then, the industry has experienced unprecedented change, with increased regulatory requirements and major geopolitical and economic shifts.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
Generations Born After 1939 Unlikely to Reach Age One Hundred, New Study Finds
End to a four-year manhunt in New Zealand: the father who abducted his children to the forests was killed, the three siblings were found
Germany Suspends Debt Rules, Funnels €500 Billion Toward Military and Proxy War Strategy
EU Prepares for War
BMW Eyes Growth in China with New All‑Electric Neue Klasse Lineup
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Florida Murder Case: The Adelson Family, the Killing of Dan Markel, and the Trial of Donna Adelson
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Big Tech Executives Laud Trump at White House Dinner, Unveil Massive U.S. Investments
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
‘Looks Like a Wig’: Online Users Express Concern Over Kate Middleton
Brand-New $1 Million Yacht Sinks Just Fifteen Minutes After Maiden Launch in Turkey
Here’s What the FBI Seized in John Bolton Raid — and the Legal Risks He Faces
Florida’s Vaccine Revolution: DeSantis Declares War on Mandates
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
"The Situation Has Never Been This Bad": The Fall of PepsiCo
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
The Fashion Designer Who Became an Italian Symbol: Giorgio Armani Has Died at 91
Putin Celebrates ‘Unprecedentedly High’ Ties with China as Gazprom Seals Power of Siberia-2 Deal
China Unveils New Weapons in Grand Military Parade as Xi Hosts Putin and Kim
Queen Camilla’s Teenage Courage: Fended Off Attempted Assault on London Train, New Biography Reveals
Scottish Brothers Set Record in Historic Pacific Row
Rapper Cardi B Cleared of Liability in Los Angeles Civil Assault Trial
Google Avoids Break-Up in U.S. Antitrust Case as Stocks Rise
Couple celebrates 80th wedding anniversary at assisted living facility in Lancaster
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
The White House on LinkedIn Has Changed Their Profile Picture to Donald Trump
"Insulted the Prophet Muhammad": Woman Burned Alive by Angry Mob in Niger State, Nigeria
Trump Responds to Death Rumors – Announces 'Missile City'
Court of Appeal Allows Asylum Seekers to Remain at Essex Hotel Amid Local Tax Boycott Threats
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
United Krack down on human rights: Graham Linehan Arrested at Heathrow Over Three X Posts, Hospitalised, Released on Bail with Posting Ban
Asian and Middle Eastern Investors Avoid US Markets
Ray Dalio Warns of US Shift to Autocracy
×