Isle of Man Banking

The Isle of Man is one of the world's most significant banking centres however opening bank accounts there can be problematic without visits in person. All normal banking services are available including checking, saving and merchant accounts as well as factoring and custodian services (for more information about banking services in general please see our main article in the products section). Many Isle of Man banks are not interested in dealing with clients they have not met and are generally reluctant to open accounts for corporate entities unless they are familiar with the directors. Perhaps for this reason most Isle of Man service providers insist on providing local directors and it can be very difficult to open a bank account without these directors (please see our main article on Isle of Man private companies for more information). In any case there is no requirement for an Isle of Man company to bank anywhere (and it may prefer to bank outside the Isle of Man subject to the permission of the local directors). Where the local service provider is supplying local directors it is these who will need to be signing authority on the account. They will generally follow instructions but this adds a small delay and cost to the banking operations. There are business incubations in favour of leaving control of the bank account with the local directors however this should be seen as one part of a correct structuring which would include legitimizing the involvement (if any) of the beneficial owner in the operation of the company to avoid shadow-directorship provisions. For more information see our main article on business incubation in the Isle of Man.