The state-owned National Commercial Bank of Anguilla, a partially restored amalgamation of two failed banks that did private and offshore banking business, has now opened its doors but on a very flimsy basis.

The new bank, set up with the help of the International Monetary Fund and the East Caribbean Central Bank, opened its portals for business on 25 April. The Caribbean Commercial Bank (Anguilla) Ltd and the National Bank of Anguilla, its two components, collapsed in August 2013 and their husks have been administered by the central bank since then. One of the slogans on the site, which now seems a little sad, proclaims: "CCB, going the extra mile...we love to see you smile!"

On the defunct CCB's website is a list of all the things about the jurisdiction that the old bank thought might appeal to HNW investors and others. They include no Income Tax, no Corporation Tax, no Capital Gains Tax, no Gift Tax, no Capital Transfer Tax, no Value Added Tax, no Business Sales Tax, no Withholding or Accumulating Tax, no Death Duties and no Foreign Exchange Control Regulations.

The NBA, meanwhile, still has a website that advertises its private banking and trust services, at http://nbaoffshore.ai/. Island law requires that every bank operating in Anguilla and conducting banking business in currencies other than Eastern Caribbean dollars with people who are not citizens of or resident in Anguilla has to apply for and obtain a special licence, an "offshore banking licence," to conduct this business. The NBA created a subsidiary to perform private banking services in 2005.

The employees of both banks are no longer on their former long-term contracts but on monthly ones; they almost literally do not know where their next pay cheques are coming from.

Anguilla's currency is the East Caribbean dollar, though the US dollar is also widely accepted. The exchange rate is fixed to the US dollar at US$1 = EC$2.70, according to xe.com. Anguilla’s chief minister and minister of finance is the appropriately named Victor Banks.