Over the years, the wealthy have multiplied their dollars in ways the rest of us have considered out of reach. Sophia Loren, for example, set up an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands to protect her earnings. The Rolling Stones have a similar operation in Guernsey.

If your cash flow matches that of an international movie star, you will already know about, and be taking advantage of, financial opportunities in the offshore world. You will know which location offers which kind of opportunity and you will be familiar with issues of professionalism and privacy, security and stability, integrity, expertise and access.

But if the world offshore might as well be the moon as far as you're concerned, it may be time to think again. The edge which an offshore component can bring to the behaviour of your investments is no longer exclusively available to the exceptionally well-to-do. What's more, offshore is a lot nearer than the moon; these days, it's as far away as your telephone. And whether you know it or not, you're already familiar with the world's premier offshore financial services center — in fact, you may even have honeymooned here.

It's Bermuda.

Unless you're NASA, you have no business on the moon, but little Bermuda may prove beneficial to your financial health, even if your income and assets are less impressive than Mick Jagger's.

If you've been to Bermuda, America's next-door neighbor to the east a thousand miles north of the Caribbean Sea, the news may come as something of a surprise. The little British Territory, a horseshoe-shaped cluster of pink-beached islands basking in the protection of the Gulf Stream 750 miles south-east of New York City, is picture-postcard perfect. International banking facilities probably weren't the first thing on your mind if you stopped for a rum swizzle or spent a day on one of the island's fabled coral beaches.

Bermuda is another world, according to the unofficial theme song of 'the Island', as the colony's 60,000 residents refer to the archipelago which joined the British Empire in 1609 when adventurer Sir George Somers was shipwrecked on the Island. The news went over big in Britain: before long Shakespeare had written The Tempest, about a shipwreck in "the much-vex'd Bermoothes". Bermuda became Britain's second colony. The first, the State of Virginia, voluntarily relinquished its colonial status quite some time ago.

The song has it wrong: Bermuda is two other worlds. Tourism has been the mainstay since the Island first became a summer destination in the 1930s. But alongside the Love Boats dwarfing the skyline of capital city Hamilton (population 738) and its ritzy department stores, Bermuda is home to a thriving and growing international financial services community, the offshore world's second largest collection of mutual funds, and an insurance sector now the equal in importance of New York or London's.

And here's the best part: Bermuda has no income tax, and it has no corporation taxes either. No wonder some call it paradise, the "Switzerland of the Atlantic".

More than half the companies listed on Hong Kong's Hang Seng Stock Exchange are incorporated in Bermuda, for example. The Island is the corporate home of more than 10,000 international companies and partnerships, including 80 percent of the Fortune 100 and about three-quarters of the 500. Countless individuals, perhaps including you, already carry a Bermuda element in their investment portfolios, either through mutual fund investments or, increasingly, by way of a direct relationship with one of the Island's financial institutions.

The provision of international financial services has become a Bermuda specialty. The key is the Island's political stability. Since the country formed its own Parliament in 1968, the pro-business United Bermuda Party governed without interruption, until it was replaced last November by the pro-business Progressive Labour Party. Bermuda having one of the world's best-educated populations, democracy is the rule.

The Americas are the source of perhaps 80 percent of Bermuda's bank and mutual fund deposits (almost all in US Dollars), partly because of geographical closeness and partly, to tell you the truth, because a few days in Bermuda to meet with bankers or other advisors is easily stretched to include a weekend in one of the world's finest travel destinations. The Island is no more than a couple of hours' flying time on any one of a dozen direct daily flights from New York, New Jersey Philadelphia, Boston or Toronto. British Airways fly in and out four times a week from London and new routes were expected to open when Bermuda Communications Directory 1999-2000 went to press.

If, on visiting the Island, you find the lifestyle reassuringly familiar (albeit a little more British), it might pay you to drop in on a financial professional or a banker, who will be in some ways quite different from what you're used to. For one thing, he (if it is a he) will probably be wearing short pants, Bermuda shorts, even if he never was a Boy Scout. It's warm in Bermuda, so the shorts, which look faintly ridiculous to outsiders, are only common sense. Buy a pair. Hardly anyone will laugh at your knees.

It might surprise you to find out that Bermuda draws investors for a variety of reasons other than its lack of tax. A blend of a sensible regulatory environment, first-class legal, accounting and other support services, state-of-the-art telecommuni-cations and, increasingly, the sophistication of the Island's banking services are the lure; what Bermudians (never "Bermudans", please) refer to euphemistically as "tax neutrality" is merely the icing on the cake.

So what does all this mean to you? How do you apply a little icing to your own cake?

You probably don't think of yourself as a high net worth individual, and much as the idea might appeal, your time commitments may not allow you to divert to Bermuda right this red hot second. But the fact is that you probably have sufficient assets to make an offshore component crucial to your investment planning, and you don't need to visit Bermuda to set it up. Gone are the days when only a privileged "jet set" enjoyed the advantages of offshore banking. Or maybe we all joined that set. Either way, offshore is as important to today's portfolio basics as investment spread or risk management.

Bermuda limits the number of its banks to three to ensure their financial stability. The Bank of Bermuda is the Island's largest financial institution, more than 100 years old. The Bank of N.T. Butterfield is older still, founded in 1858. The third bank, Bermuda Commercial, looks after corporate clients. Between them, they look after about $60 billion of other peoples' money. While that's not exactly chump change, it's small enough to allow the banks to retain a human face.

Their balance sheets and financial activities reflect the Bermudian way of doing business: solid, low-risk, growth-oriented. While you may choose a high-risk investment strategy for your money, you hardly want your bank to do the same. Bermuda's banks have been at the heart of the Island's drive to lead the offshore world, and now they are busy leading the world offshore.

Led by the Bank of Bermuda, the banks have started to put in place what's called international architecture. Not floor tiles from Italy, but a global network of offices in places as near as New York City and as far away as New Zealand. The whole world is accessible to you and your money through a single client relationship officer, and your computer if you need up-to-the-minute information.

Not just because Bermuda is 21 miles long and at most a mile or two wide does the banks' decision to move out into the larger world make sense. One economic theory holds that a historical imperative is at work in the relationship between onshore and offshore.

Whenever a period of major development takes place onshore, the use of offshore facilities increases by leaps and bounds. The examples are compelling: Great Britain acted as the offshore jurisdiction for the funding of the development of the United States, especially the railroads, in the 19th Century. The Brits' argument, presumably, was: If you can't beat them, coin them. The funding for China's current redevelopment and move into the real world is similarly channelled through Hong Kong, which is one of the reasons the Chinese wanted the Fragrant Harbour back.

In the world of finance, offshore is no longer second-class, or third world; it has become central. When Queen Elizabeth II visited Bermuda a few years back, local newspapers ran comments about her visiting her money. Her bankers opened a trust office a couple of years ago in Bermuda when the colony liberalized its trust laws.

But if your assets don't include a castle and you don't employ a footman, at the very least ask your professional advisor about the world offshore. (If he's not sure what offshore is, get a new advisor).

Your money will thank you. And then you can fly down to Bermuda for a few days in the sun and return the favour.