Grow your assets by opening a personal account in a Singaporean bank – from 2999 EUR

If you are concerned with the issue of wealth management, we have an interesting proposal to make. We invite you to consider opening a personal bank account in one of the most developed countries of the world – Singapore. The bank that we are suggesting will help you optimize your investment portfolio. You can open an account there remotely.

The bank was established about thirty years before Singapore became independent from Malaysia in 1965. It has been growing ceaselessly in size and capitalization ever since. Today this bank has large divisions in Malaysia, China, and Thailand and branch offices in sixteen more countries in the Asia Pacific region as well as Europe and North America.

Why Singapore?

Different agencies rank Singapore differently for the level of its economic development. Some of them deem Singapore the best-developed country in the world while others think it is only the second best. Whatever economic rating you look at, you will always find Singapore among the top ten countries in any case.

Singapore is a country occupying 63 islands, five of which are quite large. Back in 1965, it broke away from Malaysia due to a conflict with the central government of this country. At that time, Singapore was a poor state that was dependent on the export of even such basic commodities as drinking water and sand used in construction. However, the government of the new independent state was determined to turn the situation over and make the country prosper.

The fact that Singapore used to be a British colony before did good service to it, as a matter of fact. Those in power in the country had a British vision of both the economy and the legislation issues. Singapore lacked natural resources badly (and it still does), so the government realized that the only way to make the country prosperous was by attracting foreign investors.

A series of measures was taken to bring international companies to Singapore. Inviting laws and regulations were adopted, tax incentives offered, and corruption severely fought against. Thirty years of consistent economic policies and dedication to service on the part of government officials turned Singapore into a large Asian financial and production center. In the 1990s, the world was truly amazed at the impressive economic success that Singapore had achieved over such a short period. The country was referred to as ‘an East Asian tiger’ and there were years when Singapore GDP per capita was higher than that in the United States. Currently, Singapore remains one of the richest countries on the planet.

The bank’s approach to wealth management

You can open a personal account with the bank in Singapore that exercises a rather unique approach to investment advice. Moreover, you can do it without leaving the comfort of your home.

The bank officers will give you full information about the investment option you are considering. With their assistance, you will have the full picture and not only the luring fragments of it. Empowered by complete knowledge of the investment opportunity, you will be able to make the right decision: the decision that is right for you.

Every investment opportunity promises some returns but it also involves certain risks. What makes this bank’s investment advice unique is their ‘risk first’ approach. This means that before providing the calculations of possible returns, the bank managers will emphasize the risks associated with the prospective investment.

They will work with you intensively in order to determine your risk tolerance too. They believe that protecting your wealth should have a higher priority over expanding it. Thus, when talking about wealth management, right from the beginning the officers will meticulously disclose all the potential perils that a certain investment opportunity may entail.

Your personal wealth management advisor will want to develop a clear understanding of your goals and priorities. Do you want to seize the opportunities that the market offers? Would you like to acquire a source of a stable passive income? Is your main goal to protect your personal assets?

In addition, the advisor will want to know how risky an investor you are. He or she will explain the kinds and the amount of risk that the investment option under consideration involves. That is, s/he will show you what risk you will have to take if you choose this option. Then the advisor will try to find out what risk you can afford to take and how much of it you are willing to take.

When an understanding of your investment priorities and your risk profile has been achieved, the bank officer will put forward some investment recommendations. If your primary goal is to build a passive income, s/he will recommend investing in the types of assets that traditionally demonstrate low price swings under normal economic conditions. If you want to grasp some enticing market opportunities, the advisor will present the Valuation-Trend-Business Cycle measurable drivers to you so that you can assess the possible risks and returns that a particular investment solution may have.

Types of services that the bank offers

The client advisor will be your primary contact person with the bank. He or she will inform you on all the investment options available and discuss the possibilities of diversifying your investment portfolio with you. Product specialists assist the client advisors by providing the most up-to-date and the most reliable information to them. There are property experts, insurance experts, and investment and treasury experts working for this bank.

With the experts support, the advisor will discuss the investment strategies with you. The possibilities to invest into equities, bonds, or unit trusts will be presented to you. You can also obtain advice on legacy planning, structured products, and dual currency investments.

Besides, you will be able to leverage the extensive credit opportunities that the bank offers. You can use your residential or commercial property located internationally to obtain a loan. Your advisor will also happily discuss property equity financing and the currency deposit leverage possibilities with you.

The only type of personal account that you can open with this bank is a privilege account. This will entail preferential services in over five hundred branch offices that the bank has in various countries and territories. In Singapore in particular, you will find seven dedicated service centers among the fifty-five bank offices on different islands that the country is located on. Privilege service centers can also be found in Indonesia, Malaysia, China, and Thailand.

You can open a fixed deposit in the local currency (the Singaporean dollar) or a foreign currency such as the US or Canadian dollar, British pound, Euro, and so on. There is also a possibility to have a global currency premium account with this bank.

You can use ATMs located worldwide to withdraw cash form your account or make deposits to it. The Internet banking services are also diverse and readily available wherever there is Internet connection. The English language is used both in the bank offices and on its Internet site.

Terms and conditions of personal account opening

• Foreign nationals are entitled to open only a privilege account in this bank.
• Citizens of the following national states will not be able to open an account with this bank: Syria, Sudan, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea. In addition, PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons) will not be serviced.
• The bank has to know the origin of your wealth. Money derived from such business activities as weapon manufacture and trade, trade in metals, and commodity trade are not accepted.
• Offshore companies are also considered high-risk entities and service to such companies is generally denied. However, the bank will consider applications from offshore companies on the case-to-case basis.
• The bank issues debit and credit cards.

The procedure of account opening

You do not have to pay a visit to this Singaporean bank in order to set up a personal account there.

The first stage of the procedure involves submitting a scanned copy of your passport and the background information about yourself. The compliance department has to ascertain that it clearly understands the source (or the sources) of your income and finds them legitimate.

If you pass the first stage successfully, you will be asked to fill out the Account Opening Checklist and some other bank forms.

You will have to sign all the forms and make scans or photographs of the signed copies.

In addition to that, you will have to provide proof of address.

Besides, you tax identification number is also required.

Each page of the photocopy of your passport as well proof of address has to bear your signature in the bottom right or left corner.

When all the documents are ready, you will have to send the signed copies and/ or originals to the bank office by DHL or some other courier service.

When a bank manager inspects all of those, you will receive a telephone call or a message from him or her that is needed to validate the information that you will have supplied.

After the information is validated, your application form and all other documents will be passed on to the account-opening department.

After three to five business days, you will have your account opened and thus you can use it for transactions.

NB: All documents have to be in the English language or they need to be translated into English otherwise. If the latter is the case, the translations have to be apostilled.

The required deposit amount

The minimum required sum that you will have to put into your account in this Singaporean bank is US$ 300,000.

You will also have to maintain the minimum balance of the same sum during the first three months since you deposit the money with the bank.

Why open a foreign bank account at all?

Logicians joke that the only thing that can be claimed about the future with logical certainty is that nothing can be claimed about the future with logical certainty. You do not know what life has in store for you as nobody does.

Any bank in any country in the world can go bankrupt. They actually do with a frightening regularity. A lawsuit against you that will entail blockage of your bank account can occur when you least expect it. The government of your country can pass a new legislation that will change your fortunes overnight. It is a wise decision indeed to diversify your financial assets and keep your money in different banks, preferably, in different countries.

We would like to make a special point here, however. Please remember that it is your responsibility to inform the tax authorities of your home country that you have opened a bank account abroad when you have done so. And of course, the taxes must be already paid on all the money that you transfer to a bank in a foreign jurisdiction.

Besides, you have to realize that maintaining an account in a foreign bank is going to cost you more than having a bank account at home. But in a world as unpredictable as ours, the cost is going to be worth it.

Why do you need our help?

If you think that the client chooses the bank whose services he or she wants to use and not vice versa, you are mistaken, we are afraid. It certainly should be the case in a perfect world but this world is not perfect, and this statement can hardly be argued. As things stand for now, banks choose clients.

There are two crucial requirements that you have to meet in order to acquire service from a foreign bank. First, you have to be able to supply some conclusive evidence of the fact that your income comes from a legal source. The AML (anti-money laundering) regulations are very tough and practically impossible to overcome. Thus, if you would like us to help you legalize some criminal incomes, we cannot be of assistance to you for practical reasons.

The second vital factor is supplying the right application documents. Every bank will have its own requirements as to the list of documents, their shape, size, color, smell, taste, etc. (This is a joke but only in part.) We have opened foreign bank accounts for hundreds and hundreds of our clients but we still sometimes face some requirements that are new ever to us given our vast experience.

We work closely with every bank that we recommend and we know each bank’s conditions to the very small detail. We will check all the application documents for you and file the kind of application to the bank that stands the best chance of approval. We cannot guarantee that the bank will accept you as its client but we do guarantee that we will lean over backwards to maximize the chances of such acceptance.

Please apply for our services by writing to us to [email protected]. In case you would like to ask us any questions, we will be happy to answer them via the same medium. We love to see our clients fully satisfied and we will do our best to give ourselves this type of pleasure.