What should I do to pick the right consultant to open offshore bank account
"It is unusual to need a consultant to open a bank account for you, and I would also be concerned that perhaps the consultant could take the money and do nothing, or continue to demand various sums of money for ""expenses"" like permits, licenses, identity check, etc.  until you give up.    Some of the more accepted ways to open a bank account are: A: Call up an established bank and follow their instructions to open a personal account . Make sure you are calling on a real bank, one that has been around a while. Hints: has permanent locations, in the local phone book, and has shares traded on a national stock exchange.  Call the bank directly, don't use a number given to you by a 3rd party consultant, as it may be a trick... Discuss on the phone and find out if you can open an account by mail or if you need to visit in person.  B: Create a company or branch office in the foreign country, assuming this is for business or investing.   and open an account by appointing someone (like a lawyer or accountant or similar professional) in the foreign country to represent the company to open an account in person.  If you are a US citizen, you will want to ask your CPA/accountant/tax lawyer about the TD F 90-22.1 Foreign Account Bank Report form, and the FATCA Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. There can be very large fines for not making the required reports.   The requirements to open a bank account have become more strict in many countries, so don't be surprised if they will not open an account for a foreigner with no local address, if that is your situation."
"I think the other answers raise good points.  But to your question, ""How do I find an honest financial adviser"" ask your friends and family.  See who they talk to and confide in.  Go meet that person, understand what they do and how they view things and if you gel, great.  Honesty and strong ethics exist in individuals regardless of laws. What is it you're trying to accomplish?  You just have some money you want to put aside?  You want to save for something?  You want to start a budget or savings plan?  Your first step may be talking to a tax person, not an investment adviser.  Sometimes the most significant returns are generated when you simply retain more of your earnings and tax people know how to accomplish that.  You're just graduating university, you're just going to get your first job.  You don't need to hunt for the right heavy hitter 30% gains generating financial adviser.  You need to establish your financial foundation.  Crawl, walk, then run. There are some basics (that transcend international borders).  If you don't know much about investing, most (if not all) retirement and individual brokerage type accounts will give you access to some kind of market index fund.  You don't need to multinationally diversify in to high fee funds because ""emerging markets are screaming right now.""  Typically, over a few years the fees you pay in the more exotic asset classes will eat up the gains you've made compared to a very low fee market index fund. You can open free accounts at a number of financial institutions.  These free accounts at these banks all have a list of zero commission zero load funds, all have something resembling an index fund.  You can open your account for free, deposit your money for free, and buy shares in an index fund for free." First, make sure you are contacting the bank directly - use an old invoice you have on hand with a phone number direct to the bank and call them.  Do not use the provided number, or you may wind up being pulled into a scam (It is entirely possible that the bank is also confused at this point - so you should not rely on the number provided at all). Second, once you can confirm that your account is being closed, find out when it is being closed so you know when you need to act on it - it's possible you still have access to your account, and do not need to launch into a panic just yet.   Third, get the bank to explain exactly why they are closing your account - make it clear that if they cannot explain, you will be forced to transfer to a new account and close business with them permanently - this is not a threat, this is a matter of fact because... Finally, if you cannot keep your account open, find a different bank and open up a new account.  Frankly, if your current bank is closing your account and only managed to get a letter out to you a month late, you should probably find a new bank.  If instead they simply cannot figure out if your bank account is closed or not, this is also a bad sign and you may want a new bank account anyway.   But please, go through these steps in order, because you need to verify with your bank what is going on.   Keep @Brick 's answer in mind as well, in case you need to get your money out of your account quickly. I'm looking for another one right now. Here's what I've found: Los Alamos National Bank (www.lanb.com) has tokens ($5?), but I think they only open accounts for New Mexico residents. I've had one for several years. USAA Savings Bank (usaa.com) has tokens ($5 or free, I don't remember). I'm pretty sure you do NOT need to be a USAA member to open an account. I've had one for a couple of years. Several banks (Frost Bank, American National Bank of Texas, Amegy Bank, and probably many, many more) offer them as part of their Treasury Management accounts, meant for big businesses and charged for accordingly. Happy State Bank (in, where else, Happy, Texas) has a web page saying they have them but their services charges were more than I wanted to pay. ClearSky Bank (an Internet bank started by Chesapeake Bank) claims on their web page to have them but I haven't verified that yet. Still looking... In the general case if you have income coming in from a foreign source you need to declare it on your Canadian tax form, and nominally pay tax on it. However Canada has a tax agreement with the UK to ensure that you are not taxed twice. You also declare how much tax you have paid to the UK, and that is deducted from your Canadian tax bill. You may need to consult a tax professional, or maybe just read the Revenue Canada website to get the details. If you are holding this money for a friend, then you may find that this does not count as income to you. If you are getting it transferred to you in Canada, and then immediately passed on to your friend, it probably doesn't count as income (though again a tax professional will probably be helpful). This would mean you don't have to pay Canadian tax. But it's also a bummer because you've paid UK tax, which you might also have avoided, and you can't get that back without a lot of form filling. If this is going to be an ongoing situation, and the amount is significant, then you might look at getting your friend's money (and any you have in a UK account yourself) transferred to an offshore account, where UK tax is not automatically deducted. Most UK banks will do this for non-UK residents. "You want a fee-only advisor.  He charges like an architect or plumber: by the hour or some other ""flat fee"". That is his only compensation. He is not paid on commission at all.  He is not affiliated with any financial services company of any kind.   His office is Starbucks.  He does not have a well lit office like the commission broker down the street.  He does not want you to hand him your money - it stays in the brokerage account of your choice (within reason - some brokerage accounts are terrible and he'll tell you to get out of those).  He never asks for the password to your brokerage account.  Edit: The UK recently outlawed commission brokers.  These guys were competitive ""sales types"" who thrive on commissions, and probably went into other sales jobs.  So right now, everyone is clamoring for the few proper financial advisors available.  High demand is making them expensive.  It may not be cost-effective to hire an advisor; you may need to learn it yourself.  It's not that hard.  Ever hear of a plumber who works totally for free, and makes his money selling you wildly overpriced pipe?  That's what regular ""financial advisors"" are.   They sell products that are deliberately made unnecessarily complex. The purpose is first, to conceal sales commissions and high internal fees; and second to confuse you, so the financial world feels so daunting that you feel like you need their help just to navigate it.   They're trying to fry your brain so you'l just give up and trust them.   Products like whole life and variable annuities are only the poster children for how awful all of their financial products are.  These products exist to fleece the consumer without quite breaking the law.  Of course, everyone goes to see them because they have well lit offices in every town, and they're free and easy to deal with. Don't feel like you need to know everything about finance to invest.  You don't need to understand every complex financial product that the brokerage houses bave dreamed up: they are designed to conceal and confuse, as I discuss above, and you don't want them.  The core of it is fairly simple, and that's all you really need to know.   Look at any smaller university and how they manage their endowments. If whole life, annuities and those complex financial ""products"" actually worked, university endowments would be full of them.   But they're not!  Endowments are generally made of investments you can understand.  Partly because university boards are made of investment bankers who invented those products, and know what a ripoff they are.   Some people refuse to learn anything.  They are done with college and refuse to learn anything more.   I hope that's not you.   Because you should learn the workings of everything you're investing in.    If you don't understand it, don't buy itl  And a fee-only financial advisor won't ask you to.  1000 well-heeled, well-advised university endowments seek the most successful products on the market... And end up choosing products you can understand.  That's good news for you." Considering a CFP will likely use the same planning software as any other advisor...just hire an advisor with a clean broker check and solid educational background that doesn't come off as a sleazy sales person.   Not to say that a CFP doesn't say ANYTHING about qualifications, but really it's just a marketing ploy from a business perspective. You're off to a great start. Here are the steps I would take: 1.) Pay off any high-interest debt. 2.) Keep six to twelve months in a highly liquid emergency fund. If the banks aren't safe, also consider having one or two months of cash or cash-equivalents on the premises. 3.) Rent a larger apartment, if possible, until you've saved more. The cost of the land and construction will consume a very large portion of your net worth. Given the historical political instability in that region, mentioned by the previous comments,  I would hesitate to put such a large percentage of your wealth in to real estate.  4.) Get a brokerage account that's insured and well known. If you're willing to take the five percent hit to move assets offshore, then consider Vanguard. I'm not sure if they'll give you an account but they're generally acknowledged as an amazing broker in the US with low fees and amazing funds. Five percent (12,500) is worth it in my opinion. As you accumulate more wealth, you can stop moving cash overseas and keep a larger mix domestically.  5.) Invest in your business and yourself even more.  As far as finding new investment opportunities, I would go through the list of all the typical major asset classes and consider the pros and cons: fixed-income, stocks, currencies, real estate / REITs, own a small business, commodities etc., "First paragraph is very true. But you also have to take into consideration that the adviser and the company are 2 different ""things"" to look into. For the adviser, quickest and easiest way is to do a Facebook search. The point of this is to see how transparent they are with their personal life. Even companies are now relying on Facebook to see how they ""really"" are. I wouldn't care if the person has lots of photos with booze and girls, but I would be concerned if they are using FB for spamming purposes, have pictures with drugs, or hints that they don't like their job and want to move on to something else.  Second paragraph is spot on as well. But I would rather want to know if the company cold calls or not... which leads in to your last statement.  For one adviser, more than 100 clients is a red flag. This could mean that they push savings plans left and right, they don't contact their current clients, and/or they may not have the ability to assist clients should they get many queries.  A few good questions to ask:  1. How do you make your salary?  2. Besides this plan you are selling me, what other types of products do you work with and show me several examples?  3. How many other advisers are in your firm?  4. How many clients does your colleagues and boss have?  5. How often do you cold call?  6. Who else cold calls in your office?  7. How does your company get new clients OTHER than referrals?   Go interrogation style and ask the above questions several times using different phrases."