For their part unions have already responded

A new site is open for French banks after the statements of Georges Pauget, President of the French Banking Federation (FBF). The latter indeed promised Friday, out of the Elysee Palace where Nicolas Sarkozy asked them to be "best" in the implementation of the decisions of the g-20, that the banks would take "of the initiatives for what is tax havens". Yesterday big banks did not give much detail on their concrete runways. For their part, unions have already responded. The Inter-Union of banks has called "its activists to hold accountable to bank branches" on the list of their settlements in tax havens.

The figures are missing it is true in the matter. The international banking group, BNP Paribas, said in recent weeks that the part of its net banking product made in tax havens and offshore centres was less than 2, all combined banking activities. The figure appears minimal from the perception of the public, but it does not account, of course, the use of legal structures housed in offshore havens or places for the purposes of certain transactions. In the meantime, three families of banking activities are known to have links with the tax havens and offshore financial centres, including in any good any honour.

The private bank. All the major French banks operating in the field of private banking, i.e. of the management for affluent clients in France and abroad. The leader is BNP Paribas, sixth private banking world with 141 billion euros of assets managed end of 2008 (including 56 billion in France) is where Credit Agricole managing more than 85 billion and the company General 67 billion. Private and institutional BNP Paribas management accounted for 0.9 of the GDP of the Group and 15 of the result before tax last year.

In this job, big banks have developed a presence in large squares of management of the so-called offshore capital (held by customers outside their country of residence) where they serve French and international clients in respect of their internal conduct and local laws. However, some of these countries are pointed by the OECD, starting with the Switzerland, the first world centre for offshore management (see illustration below) placed on the greylist because the sealing of its banking secrecy, to ease international pressure.

The Bank financing and investment (BFI). The use of tax havens is frequently used by the BFI in different types of mounts, but for various reasons: tax, accounting or regulatory, optimizing the tax aspect is paradoxically the least important. The accounting aspect, however, allowed banks to change their vehicles of securitization (or "taken"), in domiciliant in tax havens, thereby avoiding the prudential constraints of the regulator. The crisis, indeed, forced them to reconsolidate these structures. Finally, regulatory flexibility of certain tax havens allows banks, such as hedge funds or reinsurers, to very easily in a very restricted category operations.

Asset management. The case of Maddoff popularized the phenomenon, number of UCITS are domiciled in the Luxembourg, including when buyers are French customers followed in France. Explanation: the know-how of local teams and especially the Luxembourg regulatory, which facilitates the distribution of these products at the international and savings of costs for the banks. French groups have therefore teams on the spot. The France is 6 to 8 of the Fund sponsors market which weighs 1,600 billion euros of net assets total. In addition, "alternative" management is strong user of investment funds domiciled in certain offshore place.