New Index Launched to Track Offshore Dollar Rates

Stephen Harris

19 May 2006

Investec Bank (Channel Islands) has launched an index to track rates on US dollar offshore savings accounts, and how they respond to movements in the Federal Reserve rate. The first findings of the Investec Bank US dollar Offshore Savings Index show that between 11 August 2005 and 3 March 2006, the US Fed rate increased by 1.00 per cent, but this was beaten by the returns of the 28 US dollar offshore accounts reviewed for the Index which increased by 1.02 per cent on average. On 11 August 2005, the average return on the US dollar offshore accounts reviewed was 2.29 per cent gross, which was 1.21 per cent below the US Fed rate of 3.50 per cent. By 3 March 2006, the rate was 3.31 per cent gross, which was 1.19 per cent below the US Fed rate of 4.50 per cent. “US dollar offshore accounts have been much better at passing on increases in the Fed rate than Euro accounts have been in relation to changes in the European Central Bank base rate, as highlighted in our Euro Offshore Savings Index,” said Anna Malcolm of Investec Bank (Channel Islands) in Guernsey. “However, despite this, there are still many US dollar offshore accounts paying rates that are much lower than the Fed rate.”