Many African families now live in more than one world at once. Businesses and homes may be in Tanzania, while university, healthcare, and investment opportunities stretch across borders.

At some point the same question comes up around a dining table or boardroom:

“How much of our wealth should stay here, how much should sit offshore—and in what form?”

The answer is rarely about secrecy or fashion. When it works well, the mix of onshore and offshore is simply another way of saying: Where does this money need to be, in which currency, and under which rules, so it can actually do its job for the family?

Over the years at Hament, we’ve seen that the families who navigate this best don’t start with products or jurisdictions. They start with purpose, then build a structure that serves that purpose with as little complexity as possible.

When life is lived in more than one place

For many Tanzanian HNWIs, the balance sheet is already cross-border. There are operating companies and properties at home. Children or grandchildren may be studying abroad. Healthcare and travel costs show up in foreign currencies. Portfolios are spread across local banks and offshore platforms.

Layer on currency swings, changing regulations, and occasional “de-risking” by banks, and it becomes clear why structure matters. A thoughtful setup doesn’t just protect capital; it keeps basic things—payments, transfers, and reporting—running smoothly when the world is less than smooth.

What “onshore” and “offshore” really mean

In practice, onshore is your domestic footprint: local bank accounts, operating businesses, and real estate held under home-country law. Offshore is a legally established presence in another jurisdiction. That might be a custody account, a trust, or a holding company used for diversification, market access, and continuity.

Both are legitimate when they are well-documented, properly reported, and anchored in real economic activity and family needs. The aim is not to hide; it is to balance diversification, access, and legal protection in a way that fits your life.

From secrecy to purpose

Once you move past the old idea of “offshore as secrecy,” a more useful question appears:

“What job do we need each part of the structure to do?”

For most families, the answers fall into a pattern. Onshore wealth is there to fund day-to-day life, payroll, local taxes, and businesses that depend on local relationships and licences. Offshore wealth is there to hold global portfolios, reserves for foreign education and healthcare, co-investments with international partners, and succession vehicles that benefit from neutral, stable administration.

Matching currency and use follows naturally. Operating cash tends to stay where you spend it. Long-term investment and legacy assets sit where access, stability, and custody are strongest. Once purpose is clear, structure becomes easier to design—and easier to explain to the next generation.

We often see versions of these patterns:

• Domestic business + family trust.
• Education and healthcare reserve.
• Dual-custody portfolio.
• Philanthropy sleeve.

None of this requires dozens of entities. The most robust plans start with a minimum-viable structure and grow only when the benefits of extra complexity are clear and measurable. Good structure without good housekeeping still creates risk.

Families that sleep well tend to keep certified IDs, proof of address, and source-of-wealth files current for both local and offshore institutions. They match liabilities to income, avoiding large unhedged foreign-currency debt against purely local earnings.

They choose jurisdictions for stability, regulation, and service quality, not just low fees. And they coordinate early with local counsel and tax advisers so cross-border reporting stays clean.

Operational details matter just as much. Strong multi-factor authentication, tested backups, documented settlement instructions, and clear records of who is authorised to act on which accounts all reduce the chance of a scramble when something unexpected happens. It may not be glamorous work, but it is often the difference between a structure that protects the family and one that creates headaches.

A simple playbook for families

When we map a family’s position at Hament, the steps are usually the same, whether the balance sheet is modest or complex. First, we map the landscape: assets, liabilities, and cash flows by currency and jurisdiction, along with who depends on each stream.

Next, we choose custody intentionally, pairing a reliable local bank with a top-tier offshore custodian and making sure everything can be seen in one reporting view. We then select the right vehicles—a trust, holding company, or insurance wrapper where appropriate—with clearly defined roles for trustees, directors, and any protector.

After that, we define mandates and access. Signatories, successor signers, and emergency powers are documented, and originals are stored safely with digital copies in a secure vault. Finally, we write the rules down in an Investment Policy Statement and a simple currency policy, and set an annual review to check governance, fees, residency, regulation, and fit with the family’s current life.

What to watch out for

The most fragile arrangements usually share the same traits. They have too many entities created for appearance rather than purpose. They rely on secrecy instead of transparency. They depend on a single bank or jurisdiction. They carry big currency mismatches and neglect basic reporting.

On paper they can look sophisticated. In practice they are hard to run, hard to explain, and easy to break. A useful question for any cross-border family is:

“If something happened to me tomorrow, would this structure make life easier or harder for the people I care about?”

If the honest answer is “harder,” the work to do is not in exotic products. It is in simplifying, clarifying roles, tightening compliance, and aligning assets with real-world needs. Those are all choices within the family’s control, regardless of what markets or politics are doing.

At Hament, we help Tanzanian and African families blend onshore familiarity with offshore access—so their wealth is spendable at home, investable globally, and durable across generations.

Contact Hament for a tailored onshore–offshore plan—custody, vehicles, currency policy, and governance—built around your family and your businesses.

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