International bank account opening.

Banking is the hardest part.

Forming a company can take days. Opening its bank account often takes longer, because banks must understand who owns the company, what it does and where its money comes from.

Banks worldwide apply customer due diligence rules shaped by the FATF Recommendations and by national anti-money-laundering laws. A business with owners in one country, a company in another and customers in a third presents more questions than a purely domestic one, and banks are entitled to decline any application. What we can do is make sure the application answers those questions clearly from the outset.

AT Express is headquartered in Cyprus, with offices in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam and Singapore. Our teams know how banks in the main financial centres approach international clients, and we never suggest that an outcome is assured.

What banks will ask for.

• Certified passports and recent proof of address for every director, shareholder and beneficial owner.
• The company’s certificate of incorporation, constitution, registers and, where relevant, a certificate of good standing.
• A business plan or description: products or services, main customers and suppliers, countries involved and expected turnover.
• Evidence of the source of funds and source of wealth, such as accounts, contracts, tax returns or sale documents.
• Tax residence self-certifications for the company and its controlling persons, required for CRS and FATCA reporting.
• Contracts, invoices or a website showing that the business is real, particularly for newly formed companies.

Where an international company can bank.

The right bank depends on where the company is registered, where its owners live, which currencies it uses and where its customers are. In broad terms, owners choose between three routes:

Our guide to opening a bank account for an offshore company explains why some structures find banking harder than others. For jurisdiction-specific banking notes, see our guides for Hong Kong, Singapore, the UAE, the United Kingdom, Delaware and Cyprus.

Your account will be reported.

Under the OECD Common Reporting Standard, banks and other financial institutions in participating jurisdictions identify the tax residence of account holders and, for many companies, of the individuals who control them. They report balances and income to their tax authority, which exchanges the information with the authorities of the countries concerned. Under FATCA, financial institutions report accounts held by US persons, and by companies with substantial US owners, to the US Internal Revenue Service.

How we proceed.

Review periods vary from bank to bank and typically take several weeks. The bank alone decides whether to open an account.

Frequently asked questions.

Official sources.

1. Financial Action Task Force, The FATF Recommendations.
2. European Commission, Anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism at EU level.
3. Monetary Authority of Singapore, Anti-money laundering.
4. OECD, International standards on tax transparency, including the Common Reporting Standard.
5. Internal Revenue Service, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).
6. Council of the European Union, EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes.
7. OECD, International standards on tax transparency, including the Common Reporting Standard.
8. Internal Revenue Service, Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).