Opening a bank in Singapore with unsupported residency

[bnpsu]

Hello,

I noticed banks in Singapore only support a few residencies. For example, Canadian. What happens if you tell them you are a resident of Canada (if you previously were) but really live in another unsupported country?

I guess they are doing it for CRS? Or do they not want a high risk country customer?

 

[Tax Cow]

What happens if you tell them you are a resident of Canada (if you previously were) but really live in another unsupported country?

You'll need an address in Canada to be considered a resident in Canada. Without one, they'll want to know your residency address elsewhere before on-boarding. As a citizen and previous resident, it's not very hard to fool the bank that you still live there, but Canada will get the CRS report. If all goes well for you, the revenue agent checks the report and sees that it's for a former resident and nothing follows.

If you get follow up scrutiny from Canada, be apologetic and say that you used your Canadian passport to open a bank account without going in further detail.

I guess they are doing it for CRS? Or do they not want a high risk country customer?

Yes, CRS and KYC compliance. Tolerance for various residencies/citizenships varies by bank.

 

[bnpsu]

You'll need an address in Canada to be considered a resident in Canada. Without one, they'll want to know your residency address elsewhere before on-boarding. As a citizen and previous resident, it's not very hard to fool the bank that you still live there, but Canada will get the CRS report. If all goes well for you, the revenue agent checks the report and sees that it's for a former resident and nothing follows.

If you get follow up scrutiny from Canada, be apologetic and say that you used your Canadian passport to open a bank account without going in further detail.



Yes, CRS and KYC compliance. Tolerance for various residencies/citizenships varies by bank.

Thank you, perfect response - so legality-wise, there's not much issue on the banking level? Maybe can get the bank account closed or something?

 

[Tax Cow]

Thank you, perfect response - so legality-wise, there's not much issue on the banking level? Maybe can get the bank account closed or something?

Sure. Misleading the bank to get access to their service is never completely safe. Most likely, they'll close your account or re-start KYC if they hear back from Canada revenue agent that you're no longer a resident.

That said, there's something that works to your advantage. CRS AEOI is a one-way street:

Info flows from the Financial Institution to state revenue agents. And stops there. No state can really afford to go in cumbersome and expensive E-mail ping-pong with individual FIs to settle all data inconsistencies. Revenue agents have one question in mind - "can we tax this person or not?" - if not, another report is opened. Simple, but cost effective factory work. Even then, there's too much work to do with CRS reports if you have millions of residents with foreign bank accounts. Some uninteresting reports (for ex. in which acc balance <100K) will be ignored completely. States set their own criteria for investigations, closer-looks; I don't know what those criteria are in Canada.

 

[dotpedal]

What is the unsupporrred residency? What residency do Singapore banks not support?