Banking Superintendent Rafael Camilo, declared yesterday that offshore banking was not illegal, but that it was done through institutions that were not closely supervised by regulation authorities, and admitted that almost all banks in the system had an offshore system at the time of the 2003 crisis. Listin Diario reports that although Camilo admits the weak supervision by monetary and financial authorities of the offshore banking operations that didn’t collapse in 2003, the assisted inspections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) determined that the remaining banks didn’t have a dual accounting system. In 2003, the former monetary and financial authorities described Baninter, Bancredito and Mercantil’s offshore operations as parallel, clandestine and illegal banks. The existence of offshore banking arose as a result of the authorities’ tolerance over decades, as these accounts provided an attractive mechanism for US dollar deposits through the national banking system.