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SCMP Reporter

A NEW offshore financial centre is being promoted around the territory, and it's got a lot of advantages over the Caymans, Bermuda etc.

  It's got strong banking secrecy laws, a nice authentic-looking passport and a very low tax regime.

  The minor drawback is that it doesn't appear to exist.

  It's the Dominion of Melchezedek, sometimes spelled Melchizedek, and we hear one of the banks set up there is being called the Asia Pacific Bank.

  Extensive electronic searches have revealed nowhere called either Melchezedek or Melchizedek.

  However, there is a priest called Melchizedek who appears in Genesis, Psalms and Hebrews in the Christian Bible, so there is some, rather ancient, connection with reality.

  Melchizedek is being promoted by a chap called Prince Gerlad Dennis Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein.

  Prince, if you - or your butler, perhaps - is reading this, we'd love you to get in touch and point to Melchizedek on a map.

  The dominion has caused some puzzlement among bankers and financiers who've come across this eminent chap, particularly those who have been presented with Asia Pacific Bank cheques.

  Only a cynic would say that the Prince would turn out to have some completely ordinary name and that the passport, banking licences and other paperwork are knocked up on an Apple Macintosh.

  Free robbery  THE latest nail in the coffin of 'free' banking comes from Standard Chartered Bank, which has written a very nice letter to customers starting 'Thank you for using our 24-hour phone banking service - Bankline 8888.'   With a nice, friendly intro like this customers are bound to be on their alert. Quite right too.

  This service previously attracted a fee of $0. Now it's costing $150 a year.

  The bank blames 'rising costs'. Funny, we thought local calls were free and the cost of computers was actually falling.

  Map magic  THERE'S been a couple of trade delegations through the territory in recent weeks, a fact which could perhaps just be connected with the fact that the weather is becomingbetter for junk trips.

  One was promoting itself as the 'heart of Europe', the other as 'centre of Europe'.

  This is despite the fact that the two regions are about 1,000 miles apart.

  We blame the rise of desk-top publishing packages.

   Thanks to these and the associated clip-art maps, now anyone capable of operating a mouse can craft carefully-proportioned maps showing their own city to be right in the middle of the action, irrespective of geography.

  All in the family  THE Stock Exchange was yesterday returning to the recurring issue of companies refusing to comply with the instruction to find at least two people to sit on their boards who are independent of the company, a move designed to stop companies becoming little family clubs.

  For an example of how things used to be in the days before this drive started, in March 1992 the board of Far East Hotels comprised: Deacon Chiu, Deacon's wife Chiu Ju Ching-lan, Dick Chiu, David Chiu, Margaret Chiu, Dennis Chiu, Daniel Chiu, Derek Chiu, and Desmond Chiu.

  Now, the Exchange says all 527 listed firms have got one independent director, but 11 have yet to find a second, of which five are hard-core non-compliers.

  The other six are firms where, for instance, a director has just resigned and another is being recruited.

  Who are these refusers? We hear that at least one is part of the empire of William Cheng Kai-man.

   Anyone wanting to sit on the board chaired by a chap currently taking the Securities and Futures Commission to the Privy Council should give William a ring. The others? Well, the exchange takes a cultured approach to this sort of thing.

   Even though potential investors could find this information useful, it refuses to provide any list of its naughty firms.

  History lesson  'Will Italy see the distance? You'll be the first to know on Cable TV.'   So ran the ad for Wharf Cable's sports channels last week, announcing it was cablecasting - or whatever the word is - two key European football matches, Zaragoza vs Chelsea and Arsenal vs Sampdoria.

  You'd only be the first to know if you were a bit slow off the mark, though, as the results appeared in the Post's sports pages a full five days earlier, not through any ESP powers but because they'd been played and the final whistle blown.

  Maybe their slogan ought to be:    'Will Italy see the distance? If you've forgotten, Cable TV will remind you.' 



Ultimate tax haven lies in uncharted land