At first glance, the Isle of Man appears much like any other English seaside resort -- except it is home to almost 54 billion pounds (64 billion euros, 80 billion dollars) of offshore bank deposits.

Look beyond the neatly painted, cream-coloured hotels on the seafront of the island's capital, Douglas, and you find the offices of more than 40 banks taking advantage of the island's low-tax status.

Their presence has allowed this British crown dependency of 82,000 people situated midway between northwest England and Ireland to transform its economy in less than 30 years.

Once reliant on farming and attracting holidaymakers from Manchester and Liverpool, it now earns more than half its living from financial services -- even though it is better known to most outsiders for the TT motorcycle races around its roads every summer.

But the global economic crisis, and the collapse of banks in Iceland and the United States, has focused attention on where money is deposited and how it moves around the globe.

Obama has singled out the world's 40-odd tax havens, from the Cayman Islands to Liechtenstein, as a "problem" he intends to tackle.

In October, 17 countries from the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) led by France and Germany turned up the heat when they decided to draw up a new blacklist of centres that fail to cooperate on tax evasion and transparency.

The Isle of Man's authorities strongly reject the term 'tax haven' being applied to their island, arguing it is a derogatory description that fails to recognise the efforts they have made to comply with international standards.

The island's Treasury Minister Allan Bell told AFP he would be "very disappointed" if it was included on the new OECD blacklist, given its efforts to share information on tax with other countries and prevent money laundering.

"We are a fully cooperative, transparent, highly regulated jurisdiction," Bell told AFP. "We've never had banking secrecy and we don't intend to introduce it.

"The position that the Isle of Man has established in leading cooperation with the OECD sets us apart from most other jurisidictions and gives us a strong belief that we should be on the international community's 'white' list."

Indeed, the island has won praise from the OECD for signing tax information exchange agreements -- considered the gold standard of transparency for offshore entities -- with 11 countries including Britain and the United States.

The director of tax policy for the Paris-based OECD, Jeffrey Owens, said in September that the Isle of Man "now has the largest network of agreements" of any offshore centre.

The accords, designed to pierce secrecy, mean that countries can ask the Isle of Man for information concerning a tax investigation.

While it is proud of the progress it has made in international compliance, the island's vulnerability was revealed by the collapse of the British subsidiary of the Icelandic bank Kaupthing, an episode that led to relations with Britain being strained.

London is leading the talks with Iceland over compensating savers but to the island's anger it is also holding on to 550 million pounds of the 850 million pounds deposits of the Isle of Man branch.

It appears that in the British government's eyes, satisfying British savers worried about losing their money comes before the needs of the bank's depositors on the island.

In the midst of the furore, British finance minister Alistair Darling said "we need to take a long hard look at the relationship between this country and the Isle of Man, a tax haven sitting in the Irish Sea."

That rang alarm bells in Douglas and prompted the island's Chief Minister Tony Brown to seek an urgent meeting with the British government.

Having returned from London with assurances that Britain has no intention of reviewing its constitutional relationship with the island, Brown told AFP that Darling's words were "a misunderstanding".

Brown is confident that the island is "well-placed" to resist global political pressure on the offshore industry.

But the island's Assessor of Income Tax, Malcolm Couch, accepts that the turbulent economic times have ushered in an era of increased scrutiny for places like the Isle of Man.

"There is no doubt that the status quo ante has changed now," he said.

"But we have made enormous strides in terms of reforming our tax system and I think we are on the cusp of being assessed as in compliance (with international standards).

"In the circumstances, I am as comfortable as I can be."

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