in areas beyond Bermuda's traditional markets.

Executive vice president of banking for the Bank of Bermuda, Mr. Barry Shailer, commented: "We have a lot of interest still in the whole insurance concept, the captive concept and so on. But I think what we are seeing now is perhaps a broader acceptance of offshore as an environment for doing other things, such as structured employee benefit plans and life insurance arrangements for employees that can be structured through a captive insurance company.

"So people are starting to look at offshore and see more things that they can do in that environment than purely the insurance business,'' he said.

"It's something that can translate into a different set of business altogether. It opens up opportunities to combine trustee arrangements with banking arrangements.

"It also shows that people are looking at offshore not just in terms of Bermuda, but they are looking at other jurisdictions as well. I think offshore is becoming more into focus as an environment for doing business generally.'' On the issue of Independence, Mr. Shailer said there has not been a lot of discussion about it among potential clients he has spoken to.

He said, "A number of people who know Bermuda well have raised the issue of Independence and what is going on about it. But the majority of people that we are talking to, it doesn't seem to register with them or they don't know what is going on in Bermuda on the Independence scene.

"I think from a business perspective, the sooner we get this out of the way, the sooner we clear up the uncertainty in our business environment, the better. Business hates uncertainty.''