>This may be terribly naive, but doesn't that make the business de-facto illegal? What kind of legitimate business deserves to buck paying into the systems that support them? As a default I want to disagree, but I would like to know what business needs to operate outside of these constraints.
These constraints that you speak of are entirely arbitrary (geographical delineation) and were designed for a time before the internet. I would instead ask the question why Western governments are refusing to get with the changing tides and reform their archaic taxation codes to account for an increasingly globalised economy.
>Surely the businesses utilizing the favours of banks like Cayman are not being operated within tyrannical countries (which is the first and only reasoning I can see for operating in the manor you prescribed).
Not at all. There certainly exists a subgroup of individuals, companies, and institutions that operate in jurisdictions where there is a huge amount of uncertainty, but there is also a very large contingent that offshores their business to reduce regulatory burden and reduce tax liabilities, many of whom are individuals and companies that you and I have heard of. I doubt they will be using Cayman National Bank though, it is more likely that they will be using banks that you and I have also heard of like Barclays or DBS.