By INDERIA SAUNDERS, Guardian Business Desk, inderia@nasguard.com

At least one player in The Bahamian offshore is now intensifying its efforts to court and win wealthy Middle Eastern and Asian clients, a market this and other Caribbean centers have been remarkably slow to chase down.

"We have some clients from amazing growing economies, some from Asia and we also have some clients from the Middle East, the people that benefit from the oil," Richard Voswinckel, CEO of UBS (Bahamas), told Guardian Business. "It is not a big market for us yet, but it is a growing market."

This could be viewed as a step forward for the entire Bahamian offshore considering most players in our offshore are only now deliberating on the relative pros and cons of pursuing that business.

Banking centers in the Western Hemisphere are now moving to protect their collective book even as the U.S. economy falters. Those specializing in private wealth management and trusts face the real possibility that traditional market base won't sustain the gains of years past. Other banks are now working to mitigate losses to their own bottom lines given their failed investment in subprime securities that have now gone belly-up.

While contagion from that U.S. debacle has begun to spread to Europe and Canada, analysts have marvelled at the relative insulation of Middle East and Chinese markets. Their relative health has strengthened talk of the wholesale shift in the world's economic center in the same eastward direction.

UBS' move to secure a piece of that emerging pie comes as one Caribbean offshore player mounts its own efforts to capture Asian business.

Just last month, top BVI players commenced discussions with the Qatar Investment Authority and Qatar Financial Center about the British territory's robust regulations, corporate activities and private wealth management.

It's the kind of work Voswinckel is encouraging his colleagues in this market to actively compete.

"I think we have to do more to promote the Bahamian image and knowledge of The Bahamas as an offshore location in those areas," Voswinckel asserted. " For example on the trust side we do more business with Asia than on the banking side."

The task is made all the more challenging given the specific needs of Islamic clients who have restrictions placed on their investments by Sharia law. And while UBS, acknowledges these challenges, Voswinckel believed that this country could definitely overcome them.

"We can do that via the institutions that we have and compete with other locations like Singapore, Europe and of course the U.S. for this business," he said. "We have to be out there advertising and doing promotional trips and being known in those circles."

However it has already been established that the getting to know you process will not be easy.

"Time zone differences, language and cultural barriers, and associated costs — these are all challenges that can be overcome," Jan Mezulanik, chairman of the Association of International Banks and Trusts, told Guardian Business last November. "But they have to be viewed in the context of a profit plan."

The potential gains may be well worth the effort, Celebrated Brit banker Roddy Fleming — the man hoping to acquire control of the Grand Bahama Port Authority — is already vowing to help Grand Bahama's merchant banking sector chase down Asian clients. He envisions Freeport as an offshore center focused almost entirely on that new market, with banking professionals even working graveyard shifts in order to communicate with clients in China and the Middle East.