Banks in Hong Kong need to undertake customer due diligence to understand customers’ background.

The process of interacting with a bank in Hong Kong when opening an account broadly speaking looks like the following:

1. Call one of the banks in Hong Kong by phone. Each bank has a separate line for this.
2. Answer questions of a bank employee, provide primary information.
3. Collect all the necessary information and documents that the bank requested from you and send to the bank.
4. Visit the bank on the appointed day.

1. Detailed marketing materials about your company: presentation, list of products or services, links to the site, price lists, publications about your business in open sources, product photos, letters of recommendation from world famous companies. It is advisable that they are clients of the Hong Kong bank you are applying to. The more materials you provide to the bank, the better. This is the first step that will prove the real economic activity of your business.
2. If your company is a startup, then you need to provide:

• Business plan of the project.
• Information about affiliated companies of beneficial owners.
• Bank statements of affiliated companies for the last year with confirming invoices for each transaction, agreements, acts proving the fulfillment of obligations.
• Financial statements of affiliated companies for the last reporting year, as well as tax returns.
• Detailed information on the activities of affiliated companies.

1. If you have an operating business, then you need to provide:

• Bank statements for the last year with confirming invoices for each transaction, agreements, acts proving the fulfillment of obligations.
• Financial statements for the last reporting year, preferably audited, as well as tax returns.

• If the director of a company is another legal entity. This makes the process of due diligence more complicated.
• If your business has no substantial partners in China or Hong Kong (law and accounting firms are not taken into account).
• If a director or shareholder of your company is a resident of some of the countries listed in this link.
• If shareholders can not come personally to the bank for an interview.
• If your company is a Holding company –  that receives most of its income from passive sources (investments).
• If your business is an International eCommerce business that gets payments from private persons from other countries.
• If your business is a cash based business. If a lot of cash comes into your account, forget about opening a bank account in Hong Kong. This will be unrealistic.
• If your business is very regulated – Hong Kong banks don’t like working with companies that are heavily regulated and if this regulation concerns other countries.
• Banks in Hong Kong do not like to inspect new companies. Many banks in Hong Kong have a requirement that the company must be no older than a year and the company should have a history of bank statements. To come to a Hong Kong bank and refer to the lack of any story – an idea that will not give anything good.
• It is extremely difficult for a business connected with the cryptocurrency industry, options, and forex to open a corporate account in Hong Kong.
• If your business is connected to cooperation with sanction bodies.