What would an immortal-run American bank have to do to secretly maintain bank accounts for immortal customers?

Question

A common concern with immortal fictional characters like vampires and the like is the frequency with which they'd have to change their identities and move around in order to avoid people noticing how they don't age. This would require the frequent forging of legal documents, driver's licenses, etc. This would also make banking extremely annoying, as they'd have to keep opening and closing accounts with businesses that are pretty dang strict about their standards for identification.

But a solution occurred to me: What if there were certain banks that were secretly run by immortals, and secretly maintained persistent bank accounts that their immortal clients could access regardless of which identity they're currently using?

Of course, the way I understand it, major banks have to do a lot of reporting to the government regarding their operations, so obviously running accounts like this is going to involve a lot of extremely illegal activity to obfuscate the true nature of these accounts and who owns them. But I don't know precisely what specific obstacles they'd run into, or what the best methods of concealing the nature of these accounts would be.

If a bank were to secretly keep accounts for immortals accessing the money between multiple fake identities over decades or even centuries, what would be the easiest way to do this while concealing the accounts' true natures from the government?

Answer 1

Maintain a Bank Account for Above-Board Immortals

American law already grants personhood to immortal, soulless entities bent on twisting the minds of innocents to their will and consuming everything in an unending, unslaking lust for power.

They're called corporations.

Noss 4 At You Inc. has a rotating C-suite with signing authority that all seem to do their business by night - but the corporate credit card and bank account are entirely above board and no one is even going to look at them twice.

The account has no reason to cease, and (forged) death certificates for the expired identities of its lone board member and employee won't affect the legality of the account.

Answer 2

South Dakota and Delaware (and probably some other states) allow you to set up perpetual trusts. The money in the trust is either doled out to the named beneficiaries or spent for the their benefit according the rules of the trust. Current beneficiaries can name their successor beneficiaries so you can pass the money down through a chain of identities. A US trust pays a higher tax rate on its earnings than the individual would (40%) and has to file tax reports but assuming the person has an address and tax payer id number that shouldn't be a problem. And the financial company running the trust wasn't curious, about the "family resemblance" between different people, it should work pretty well. It would probably work even better financially if the trust resided outside of the US although the person receiving the money, if a US citizen or resident would have to report it and pay taxes on it. You could read up on off-shore trusts to find out more.

Answer 3

Banks are only one industry that requires identification - they will need to be able to identify themselves in many areas of life. Therefore, the logical immortal will go a step deeper, and try to find a process by which a birth can be registered through the proper channels, without the inconvenience of an actual child - perhaps by working a brief spell in a registry office every 40 years or so. If they can do that, the bank is one of many potential obstacles that simply ceases to exist.

A bank run by immortals will run into the same problems as our immortal friend - at some point, the ownership needs to change, and changing the CEO of a bank is rather newsworthy. You would need a whole society of immortals so that the CEO role does actually change hands, and again, those background checks would be important for such a high profile role. Therefore, our lone traveler might favour using a standard banking service with a business account, which can be conveniently 'inherited by their child' with no fanfare. Ideally, they'd want their company to be bought out by another of their companies every century or so, so as not to provoke investigation into a company that's been trading for many centuries with no apparent purpose.

They might also look into a wealth management firm. These are fairly common, and specialise in handling unique circumstances. They would be happy to handle all the financial affairs of an individual who takes their privacy seriously, and would also be happy to take over his estate and handle a smooth transfer of assets to their child.

Answer 4

People are usually concerned about the age of other people, not about the age of abstract entities.

Your immortals do not open a bank account on their name as physical persons, but open one (or more) under the name of an institution or association. That John Doe is 250 years old may rise some eyebrow even among the most inattentive people; that the association "Friends of Haggis & Whiskey" has the same age can look normal.

That the association is nothing more than a metal plaque on a door is something that require investigation to be found out, and considering how much effort does it cost for the police to find out and uncover these schema when used by criminal associations, it's very plausible that the same would hold for your immortals.

I don't think one can be an immortal without learning how to swim among the big sharks.

Answer 5

Phoenix the bank every few years, and trim history when you do.

Every decade the bank should declare insolvency or get into debt, and buy its own assets out into a new trading name. This is a common practice, it's technically illegal, but happens quite often. It's a good way to cheat on your tax bill too.

This actually happens in finance already, I once had a single credit card with a bank for 4 years, the bank behind it had 3 different legal names in that time. Same board of directors, same card, same account number, same assets, same ads, same website even, different corporate owner. (My suspicion is it moved from one tax haven to another).

Every time the bank is purchased by "new" owners, transfer the account information to a new computer system / new database. Each time you do this, the slight difference in database format will be result in data loss:

• No need to convert transaction history older than 2 years - that will just slow the conversion.
• The old system only allowed M and F for gender, the new one allows 20 choices? Better to just clear the field rather than pick incorrectly.
• The new system has different name length restrictions to the old one. Better email all the members and ask them to confirm their name, title, etc in case the old records were incorrectly entered those years ago.
  • If they were, we should correct the record at import, rather than pollute the new system with the incorrect data - it was wrong all along.
  • This process should be automated using an online system - for efficiency. Lest some non-immortal teller gets suspicious by a total name change.
• The old system stored date of birth as a string as DD/MM/YY, the new system uses the database's native date field, but because of ambiguity for those born in 1905 vs 2005, the system didn't guess.
• This should allow customers to subtly transition to a new identity every few decades, but keep their same account number.

Also - Have a branch in America, but registered offshore.

So you can start your own bank overseas on a budget. For under 80,000 Euro, you can start your own bank in the EU. There is cheaper options available, I've heard as little as $5000USD in Central Africa, but can't find info online at short notice, and the perception of trust and regulation is important.

Your bank is an overseas bank operating a branch in USA. Think HSBC - "Hong Kong and Shanghai bank corp", but headquartered in London, but you can get an account in the USA.

All the records are held overseas, outside the easy access of the US government; From the USA's perspective it's an opaque routing number and account. They can get the data with a warrant, (the bank will comply if law enforcement get that interested in someone - that's a condition of their license to operate in the USA), but this helps limit big data outing the immortal by scanning bank records.

Answer 6

While vampires have some of the same financial needs as immortal corporations, they’re a lot more like organized crime. They want to hide their dealings, and live in constant fear that they will have to flee with as much untraceable wealth as they can carry at any time. At the same time, they need pin money that won’t raise suspicion, and also some highly-liquid assets they can cash out in an emergency.

So you might look at some of the money-laundering and shadow-banking networks that criminals, and networks such as ISIS, use. This is especially true if there’s a cabal of rich Masquerading vampires who can make deals on the honor system, since if they can’t trust each other, it’s all over anyway. For example, selling real estate and antiquities at inflated prices is a common form of money-laundering, and bearer bonds are still legal in some places.

The suggestion that immortals would be anarcho-capitalists is silly. (For one thing, anarcho-capitalism is not very old and has less of a track record than the US dollar.) They want to earn interest on their investments and pay people in cash. I suppose an individual vampire could believe just about anything, or have grown up to believe that real money is gold and silver. But that’s a poor investment, easy to steal, and hard to move or hide. And, if they’re old enough to remember the Depression, they will also remember that financial panics were just as bad and happened just as often when the country was formally on the gold standard.

Answer 7

Human servitor

In most vampire settings, vampires are able to recruit humans to serve them. You could in this regard have a look to the role-playing game mascarade (which I found well thought on this aspect).

For bank human can be used as nominee. I can be a risk for a vampire to set up all his worth on one human being. And no smart vampire will ever do that, they may split it as much as they fit.

So in your case is even simpler the bank knows, who is who and the nominee don't get much real power on the money on the bank. The main issue I see is when you need to alter human nominee you would have to cover your trace and may have to pay taxes... Surprisingly human nominee have all a testament ready and no close relative.

Why a human would serve a Vampire:

• Immortality, The vampire promises that if he serves well he will be rewarded by becoming a vampire to. (don't forget a vampire won't have to fulfill his promises, just that the human belief in it long enough).
• Vampire blood is often describe as a powerful drug, with high addiction, and anti-aging effect that disappear when you stop having vampire blood regularly.
• Mental manipulation, some vampires are described as able to influence "lesser mind".
• Power, an immortal being can become really powerful and rich, and the human may not even know why he gets so much money for this job, he may not even want to know and will discards weak sign.
• Not knowing it, manipulation is a powerful tool, imagine it in the hands of a century old mighty being.

I know this answer have some loophole, But I can't imagine vampires without humans Mignon.

Answer 8

The word for a financial institution dedicated to an immortal entity is "religion".

Think about it...

You have a collection of followers, nationally or even internationally, all of whom pay regular offerings/tithes in the hope of long-term benefits from their Lord(s). The institution will last as long as it still has followers, without any requirement for the immortal being in question to actually manifest themselves - and indeed the lack of a readily-observable immortal being at the top of the organisation is expected.

For bonus points, masquerade as an obscure sect of an existing religion, with strange rules that ensure other members of the nominal religion can see you're different. The "inner secret" of who actually controls the organisation can be a deeper mystery, revealed when you're bitten (and hence controlled by the vampire who bites you and unable to tell anyone else).

There is no requirement (in most countries) for any oversight of where the money goes. And as with most organisations, most of the money goes back out into running the organisation, with only a very small amount taken by the people at the very top. Realistically a vampire isn't going to have much living costs, so their expenses only amount to a small overhead. A successful vampire knows all about blending in and staying undercover after all - and the unsuccessful ones don't survive. (Most being killed by their fellow vampires to avoid the secret being revealed, of course.)

This sounds extremely evil. It doesn't have to be, though. Churches don't just exist for the hierarchy at the top - they can also serve as a focus for good deeds by their members. And the reason the House of Lords in the UK contains Anglican bishops as members is to (theoretically at least) provide long-term moral guidance which might otherwise be lacking from a secular world. As an agnostic/atheist, I don't really subscribe to that hypothesis (look at what's happened with children's homes run by religious organisations, for example), but then our religions are run by short-lived humans. I certainly wouldn't discount vampires running their organisation on the "benevolent dictator" model, and actually being a force for good.

Of course vampires still need their quota of blood. Conveniently though, a religion tends to encourage priests to visit people who are ill or dying. Much vampire literature considers the moral issues with having to kill humans in order to stay alive, with a common theme that any surviving vampire has to be a sociopath otherwise they'd kill themselves instead of killing other people. An ethical vampire could limit their impact on humans by feeding on people who are already on the verge of death though, and "last rites" would be a very effective way to achieve that.

Answer 9

An immortal would want an immortal bank in an immortal country with a centuries-long track record of immortality.

An immortal would want an immortal currency with a centuries-long track record of immortality.

An immortal would want a banking system run by politics that they could trust with a centuries-long track record of stability.

America and the greenback does not even come close to these requirements.

No immortal would ever trust an American bank or the American banking system. It just does not have a good track record.

I suggest a better bet for them would be to find some very small, unobtrusive country that they could completely take over, and totally control, and form their own banking system and regulations with that country. You know, like financiers currently do today with Panama or the Cayman Islands or Jamaica or some very good ideas here.....

Offshore tax havens used by individuals and corporations cost governments trillions of dollars annually. According to the estimates of some economists, individuals have stashed anywhere from about $8.7 > trillion to $36 trillion in various tax shelters around the world. But not all of the tax reduction tactics favored by the rich necessarily involve offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda. There's a variety of other places the rich hide money in order to lower their tax burden each year and shelter some of their income, many of which are quite straightforward. Here are some examples provided by tax, personal finance and small business experts.

But never, never, never in a country that can not be completely controlled by immortals.

In fact, if they were truly immortal, then their best bet would be to set up an operation in a truly neutral, non-political, non-nation, non-regulated, non-controlled spot devoid of any governmental institutions without its own currency or monetary policy governance like a completely hidden, completely covered, base in Antarctica, beyond the reach of the regulatory laws or fiscal policies of any one nation.

Answer 10

Put each customers assets in a separate LLC. The LLC can legally hold assets like a person but its just a legal entity, and as such it would not raise any flags if it continued to exist for hundreds of years. If anyone asks, just say the LLC has been privately held by family X for several generations.

To spend the money the client has a company credit card. All expenses are charged to that card, and then the LLC pays them.

Any cars, real-estate, etc can be owned by the LLC and used by the client.

As for a drivers license, the last cop who pulled one of them over went mysteriously missing.

Answer 11

Two strategies: What the really rich do, and get real fake identities

(1) What real wealth multi-generational families do?

The short answer is to google "Single Family Office".

Wealthy multi-generational families have a organisation dedicated to serving their personal and corporate needs - from PAs, security and travel, to property management, special projects, PR, charitable giving, investments etc. Or whatever they wnat.

They already plan with a very-long term perspective, just for real multiple generations. With offices in multiple countries, resouces squirreled away or perpetually "in transit" etc. This bit of the problem has a real-world solution in place.

The only challenge remains creating new legal identities every generation.

Seems to me that with planning it wouldn't be hard to double-up some birth registrations.

Take the mother-to-be to two doctors (perhaps in different countries). After a home birth register the birth twice. After that it is mostly paperwork. Keep the parallel papertrail going. There may be a few occassions when a body must be presented but likley can be managed in the same way. Criss-crossing jurisdictions would make it much easier too.

When a suitable age, the identity is adopted by the immortal.

Repeat every 40 years or so.

(2) Certain agencies routinely create false "legends" for people

Intelligence agencies, witness protection schemes, etc routinely create robust fake identifies for people using REAL government documents, accounts etc. So one needs a good relationship with some of these people

Would have to think through whether certain select people would KNOW about you and be aware of what you were doing, or whether the Chinese Walls in such organisations would mean they wouldn't realise there was a sequence of identifies with ever-later birth dates.

If you are actually invulnerable-immortal you could make oneself VERY useful to these people (the film "The Old Guard" is a lovely exposition of this). If you are merely unaging-immortal there are probably still ways of building such a relationship (wealth, knowledge and patience!).

The biometrics problem

An emerging problem would be the ever-increasing use of biometrics to establish identify leading to double-matches.

So far things like passport biometrics are primarily confirmatory - you present an ID with pre-established biometrics and it is confirmed that you are a match.

With some - police fingerprint databases say, as opposed to a simple fingerprint lock - the systme is used prospectively to identify the person without a reference identity to confirm.

I am not sure how certain these matches are, vs what size database. But over-time the chance of them popping up in a list of possible matches with two or more of your identieson them would seem to increase.

Of course we don't know how immortality works - finger prints wear out a bit over time. Perhaps immortal fingers will change enough over decades for this to be a problem. Perhaps their DNA is mutable as a consequence/cause of their immortality so it won't match so well (but are their genetic markers for immortality that someone could notice). etc

Answer 12

The oldest banks are about 500 years only, and they survived by miracles .

Most banks, in recent history, fail badly and need bailing out by the taxpayer every decade or two.

They are very, very poor places to store money, identity, or anything. Despite the marketing and grandiose buildings.

Immortals would be best off simply periodically liquidating assets into cash/gold and moving residence while keeping their wealth in gold, diamonds, art , sculptures, and the like, physically moving their wealth with them.

Believe me. I speak from experience.

Answer 13

Endowments

Large university endowments are [some of] the best performers among invested private capital. Your secret vampires have been around for a while, and surely amassed a large fortune, so they "endowed" a/some university/ies, and in exchange get a "job" at the university or even managing investment of said money.