The other event I wanted to relay to you was news about HSBC in Hong Kong closing a massive number of accounts held by non-resident companies. This is very important to all of you who may have been considering Hong Kong as a banking haven.
I've already written about why Hong Kong is no longer desirable as a place of incorporation, that is unless you are actually doing business there or in China. My advice previously was to take a Nevis corporation and open the bank account in Hong Kong (pretty much the offshore-onshore strategy outlined above, with HK being the onshore part.)
This, it seems, is no longer possible with HSBC. They do not seem able or willing to handle the compliance work in dealing with offshore company accounts, except perhaps for the largest of clients.
This news follows the introduction by HSBC in Singapore of a $2000 due diligence fee for opening accounts for foreign companies. The difference in Singapore is that there are plenty of other banks to look to as alternatives – whereas in Hong Kong there are no banks really active in the non-resident banking market. I can therefore no longer recommend Hong Kong as a reliable offshore banking jurisdiction.
