An important factor that should be researched before choosing a country to open an account in, is to see if the banking system is founded upon sound financial policies.
This can largely be deduced by the government’s and central banks’ financial records.
If we look toward the US, we see that the government is very closely connected with the central banks, both of which run huge deficits.
The US runs a 100 trillion debt, with a Federal Reserve that regularly runs massive deficits.
If a central bank has policies that allow for excessive risk-taking like risky derivative trading together with low liquidity requirements that can be a potential red flag.
As all it takes is a few bumps in the market for some investments to go bad that uncertainty can easily lead for a few depositors to withdraw their money and very quickly a bank effectively becomes insolvent, especially if a bank only has liquidity of 2-3%.
There are many offshore banks that are 20-30% liquid.
Similarly, doing a little digging on the bank itself will help to see what its past financial history looks like, take a look at their financial records to see what their numbers look like.
If a bank has low capital reserves and is overexposed investments (think sub-prime real estate) that means it could be another possible Cyprus or Greece scenario where banks simply had no money to give depositors.
Ideally, this should be done with your financial advisor or someone who has a working relationship with the bank to make sure you are getting the correct numbers.
Understanding whether the bank has adequate capital services to cover any potential losses, as well as that it has adequate liquidity, that its assets are not all tied up in long term physical investments, such that there is enough cash on hand to cover a crises without the bank struggling to cover withdrawals.
Also investigating what type of investments or assets the bank is holding. If its holding lots of gold, metals, bonds, that might be a good sign, whereas if it holds lots of risky speculative investments, thats a sign to tread carefully.
The credibility of the bank, its prior record and how long its been around are important considerations, especially when dealing with foreign corresponding banks who are routinely turning away small unknown offshore banks who do not have sufficient credibility.