Offshore financial centres (OFCs) that are well regulated and agile, such as Bermuda, stand the best chance of competing with their onshore rivals in the financial services arena.

That is the view of Eduardo D'Angelo Silva, an offshore banker from the Cayman Islands, who was on a panel discussing the state and future of OFCs at the OffshoreAlert Financial Due Diligence Conference in Miami.

In an interview, Mr. D'Angelo Silva talked about a number of issues ranging from the perception of tax havens to increased regulation and the effect of the financial crisis on OFCs.

Mr. D'Angelo Silva said that the regulations in Cayman were similar to Bermuda and he did not see any change to the regulatory and fiscal environment in the future. But he said there were some big developments on the horizon from outside the offshore world including new US reporting requirements for banks and funds.

Mr. D'Angelo Silva said that a lot of the rhetoric coming out of the US about shutting down tax havens was just a public relations exercise at the moment, with America already having numerous tax information exchange agreements in place with OFCs, so it was able to get any information as needed. He added that the hedge fund industry had experienced a minimal loss of business due to the credit crunch but it was now recovering.

"I would put the loss of business at less than five percent," he said.

"It is not a great decline and this year it seems to be picking up again and new structures are being put in place."