Offshore Finance in London, Regulation and Eurocurrencies

In the opening chapter we discussed what OFCs are and the roles of taxation and secrecy in their development. We now focus on bank regulation and its relationship to the growth of offshore finance from the 1960s. Before we can go further, however, we first need to consider offshore finance in relation to theories of international banking, the behaviour of the TNC, and international finance centres. There is, nevertheless, one caveat as OFCs are not just international banking centres but may host a variety of other financial services including offshore trusts, private companies, offshore funds, captive insurance and so on, so we may not be able to merely graft OFCs onto the main body of international banking theory.