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Clients Starting to Think of $80,000 Discount as "A Third Official Option": Anastasia Barna · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking to IMI during Global Citizen Week in Cairo last month, Anastasia Barna, CEO of One World Migration, fields questions about the commentary she provided in her widely read opinion piece, The Risks of CBI Real Estate Financing.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking to IMI's Ahmad Abbas, Barna warned that just because the current government turns a blind eye, and even gives tacit assent, to unofficial discounting products not provided for in legislation, it could easily become a problem for clients under subsequent administrations.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, we don't know what's going to happen in a year.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the government in these countries will change, and they'll start investigating mistakes made in connection with obtaining citizenship.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Possible?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's possible, end quote.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: She also spoke of the widespread confusion about such options in the marketplace, which is due to years of active promotion of discounting schemes.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Clients who have initially spoken to other firms, she said, come to her thinking the discount category is a third official option alongside the donation and investment routes.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the client's fault, she remarked.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: The client doesn't know, especially when he is speaking to a licensed company.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because, let's face it, many fully licensed companies also offer this option.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: She said the sales managers of those licensed companies often themselves don't even understand that discounting is not officially permitted and end up giving the client advice in such a way that the client comes to believe this is really the best deal.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, of course, the client sees he will get the same result for less money, so why not go for it?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: End quote.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes clients come to her and ask about the$80,000 option, to which she responds by pulling up the government website and asking if they see an option for that amount listed.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Clients then often tell her, yes, but that's only officially.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: But we know others are qualifying for$80,000.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: She then concedes to the client that this is happening, but that, quote, we don't know what the consequences will be.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: End quote.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the full interview with Anastasia Barna now.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for being at Global Citizen Week.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: We are really happy to have you here.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to talk to you about a recent article you published for IMI, which is about the risks of financing.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: In that article, you mentioned risks to governments, to clients, and to developers as well.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: What are the odds that these risks become eventuality if nothing changes?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: Ahmad, thank you very much for your question.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question because this article actually took the interest from many sites, right?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna tell you why I decided to point this because we decided to point specifically to this thematic.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because for our company who is uh finding the solution for the clients and taking care about many families for a long time period after obtaining citizenship and residency, because you know in our business when you're serving the ultra-high net worth individuals, uh for us the most important is our reputation, right?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not just trying to sell something because the market of ultra-high net worth people is very small, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: In any country.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, somewhere is bigger, somewhere, but everyone knows each other, right?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in our business, for us, the main thing is it's reputation.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: So uh when we are providing to clients some kind of services which are in touch with the residency or citizenship, and let's talk about like Caribbeans, right?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is what articles were was about.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: For me, main thing, one of the main rules in our business, don't try to falsificate or fake any documents, right?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do it right way.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because you never know what can happen in the three, four, five years, even if it's a government program, governmental program, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because when we talk about the private sector, it's one thing, governmental sector, it's another thing.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna see uh experience of different countries of the these official programs.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: We can find very good examples, you know, where uh governments start to have investigations, you know, or maybe not it's it was investigation wasn't uh initiated from the government but from different.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, it's if uh it uh was falsificating or wasn't joining the rule, you know, of the program.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's a anytime risk.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know what's gonna happen in one year.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe government in this country is gonna change and they're gonna start to investigate what kind of mistakes and what kind of holes was was, right, in obtaining another second citizenship.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Possible, yes, possible.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: We know a very big example is in, for example, CIS countries, right?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: When it was falsificated only one document that the person was in a country during six months.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: What's happened?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're opening the case on this specific department, you know, they're taking out the whole completed documents, who was and they're starting to check, you know.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in our time, it's very easy to check anything, right?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because we it's everything electronically, it's very easy to check everything.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I we rolled it because of one thing, because I want to avoid all this risk and I want to uh how say to protect my clients from this.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, my clients or my future clients, you know, it doesn't have to be my clients, but I want just people knows about that because at one point we start to think that this financial option is really official program.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Even though I'm in uh this business for many years, it was marketed so much, you know, that we saw that it's an official program, you know, and only once we check the old documents we realize that it's not really everything clear in this.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: In Dubai, some people even call it the birthplace real estate financing scheme.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: So you say it's become too mainstream.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: When clients come in, do they know that this financing, let's say, framework is not something that they can find on a government website?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Or what is the impression they have when they come to you?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: They come in usually with a full understanding that this is the third official program in the country.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: They're thinking that it's a donation, it's an investment option, or it's in bond or something like that, or and financial option.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: I had today's speech, and in my speech I said uh that it's not clients' fault at all, because clients don't know, and especially when he's talking with a licensed company, for example, right?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because, okay, let's be honest, many licensed companies also providing this uh service, right?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh sales managers who is consulting the clients, they also not all of them aware of this, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the way how they're consulting the client, you know, he's thinking that it's this is the cheapest option in the country which they can go.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, if they see that they're gonna get results for much less money, this is a licensed company, why not to get it?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and when they're coming to us and they're saying, Anastasia, we want to invest, we're giving them, for example, donation and they're showing us a price which is$80,000.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always showing them, okay, showing them, open the government website, just check, it's not such a program.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're saying yes, but officially I know that people receiving this test.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but yes, receiving, but we don't know what consequences can be for that.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and do you think the recent harmonization in the Caribbean with the MOA and the changes they want to implement in June will help limit these types of uh practices, or will they continue even if the Caribbean increase prices?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good question.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good question.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I think this financial option is gonna be disappear only when Caribbean countries are gonna see real risk to lose the benefits and advantages what the countries have.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a secret for nobody that the biggest advantage and the biggest benefit of this country is a European Union in England.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's not only benefit, but let's see the situation with the Dominica, right?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: We have now five countries where Dominica don't have free access to England.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're not offering it anymore.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the most of the companies, 90% of the companies are not offering it anymore.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh another percentage who is offering, sometimes client even doesn't know that Dominica don't have the success anymore because they're not aware about very deep about these problems.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm saying that uh if to answer to your question, I think they really gonna stop with these financial options.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: One, they're really gonna have risk and have some how to call some attention from in other countries who is really involved also in controlling these cyber problems.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: This episode first appeared as an article by Christian Henrik Nesheim on IMIDaily.com.
• 8:26
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• 8:32
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