LONDON: Prime Minister David Cameron is under pressure to demand greater transparency from Britain's overseas tax havens, which critics say help promote and support corruption.
The leak of documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca shone a spotlight on British offshore financial centres, with more than half of the 214,000 companies exposed registered in the British Virgin Islands alone.
Seven of Britain's 14 overseas territories have been named by the Tax Justice Network as "secrecy jurisdictions" -- Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat and Turks and Caicos.
The advocacy group's 2015 Financial Secrecy Index assesses the Caymans to be the fifth worst offender worldwide, while Britain is in 15th place.
But if Britain and its territories were considered as one entity, they would top the index.
The territories make their own domestic laws, allowing them to offer low or no taxes, but can reassure investors that Britain will step in if there is political or economic turmoil.
They were once described by a British minister as "sunny places for shady people" but many have begun to clean up their act in recent years.
They have signed agreements to share financial information with other countries' tax authorities, and recently promised to allow British police details on who benefits from anonymous investments.
But campaigners say this is not enough, and they are pushing for public registers of so-called beneficial ownership.
"Secret company ownership makes most cases of large-scale corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing possible," said the head of Britain's parliamentary group on anti-corruption, Nigel Mills.
Ronen Palan, professor of international politics at City University London, said progress had been made on transparency in recent years but a major problem remained.
"They have no incentive to regulate this very well, because their business is attracting offshore finance," he told AFP.
The two British overseas territories ranked highest as offenders in the Financial Secrecy Index are the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands.
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