Opening an offshore account trip report, help needed

[fish2plus2]

I go to Singapore's Citibank's international branch on world famous Orchard Road, and attempt to open a offshore account that has a minimum balance of $20,000(or you get a $50/mo fee) Because I have a tourist visa and not a work visa, this is the only account available to me.

The girl takes me inside a meeting room and starts asking me how I made my money. I tell her. She then has me fill out some other papers and says that shell get back to me when its all sorted. I wait about five business days and then I have to leave because its Chinese New Year and every hotel is booked up.

About ten business days she lets me know that her supervisors are paranoid about my age and want to see documents showing how I made my money, whatever that means, so I send them copies of my tax statments for 2004, 2005, and 2006. About a week later they let me know that professionally gambling is too sensitive and that they will not open an account for me.

I dont see what the hell being a Professional Gambler has to do with me opening a Citibank account, and I imagine that this is a decision being made by some desk clerk to protect himself from possibley getting in trouble in the future for giving me an account?

Should I let it go or do I have another move?

[TheMetetron]

You have no move. A lot of offshore banks are taking this stance. I know other people who have had this same problem with banks in Switzerland and elsewhere.

My bank stopped taking gambling customers sometime in the last 3 months. Thank you being grandfathered in.

[BigPoppa]

I'd be worried that a Citibank branch anywhere would operate under the same restrictions as one in the US. Not that they'd have to, but that they would just because.



You probably need to resign yourself to openeing an account at a smaller bank with a smaller balance. You probably would've gotten an account if you'd only been depositing a couple thousand dollars.

[TheMetetron]

BigPoppa,

The account required a 20k deposit from what I can read.


KKF,

I didn't notice that. Any bank with a branch, support center, or any sort of presence in the United States is going to be subject to US intervention whenever the USA seems fit, especially with regards to its citizens. Same with any account held in US Dollars.

[fish2plus2]

"You probably need to resign yourself to openeing an account at a smaller bank with a smaller balance. You probably would've gotten an account if you'd only been depositing a couple thousand dollars."

From what Ive seen around asia, its pretty hard to open a normal bank account w/o a non-tourist visa, unless you are opening an offshore account. HSBC has similar requirements in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Met,

I thought about that too and asked in both Leg and Finance forum on 2+2 and was told that this was not the case. Perhaps someone can speak definitively on the matter. The account had the option of being in any currency.

[TheMetetron]

Any USD account no matter which country it is located in is settled daily with the US Federal Reserve. Any USD wire transfers to/from that account pass through a United States bank as an intermediary. This is what my bank account manager told me and matches with everything I've read about the subject. How much freedom this gives them, I'm not sure about. But I'm fairly certain they could freeze/seize funds in USD with ease no matter where the account is located.

That said, I have a USD account and get wires to/from it. But I also have CHF, EUR, and ARS accounts as well. If your bank is any good, they should open multiple currency accounts for you no problem.

[NajdorfDefense]

why not just open a HKD_denominated acc't at HSBC, RBC, RBS, AIB, ABN or the like? Pegged to USD for 2 decades+ now, I doubt they'd be suspicious. Call around until you find one that isn't, should be fairly easy, and then get mutli-currency acc'ts, standard as others have mentioned.