Like Tree27Likes

Overseas permanent HK residents

Closed Thread
Page 5 of 5 FirstFirst ... 2 3 4 5
  1. #41

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    311

    I just was being tongue-in-cheek referring to a silly scenario where ZA would get the best of both worlds in all this. I don’t think your friend was being cunning at all or did anything inappropriate. Appreciate you sharing it.


  2. #42

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Posts
    8,280
    Quote Originally Posted by Home_Mom:
    What are the cunning parts to opening the account? Please elaborate. Clients apply with truthful information and ZA review before they approve. AML stipulates only HK residents can open HK account?
    ZA appear to be not reviewing and verifying correctly before they approve.

    Sure, there is nothing wrong being resident in one country (eg Korea) and holding a bank account in another country (eg HK). But still the bank should know who their customers are and where they live. If people are able to sign up for a ZA account, enter an address, and not have to provide sufficient proof that they reside there, this is the problem. There are people here saying just put down a relatives address, etc, but still that should not work unless you can show a utility bill or some other form of evidence that you really live there. ZA bank appear to not be doing this basic check.

    For your friend in Korea, if they open an account with a Korean address, ZA do the checking that this address is correct, then nothing illegal here. But ZA's own website states that account holders should be resident in HK. They must have their own reasons for this, for example, they probably don't read Korean, cannot verify the residency easily, so thats why they only open to HK residents. Not sure how your Korean friend was able to get around this issue putting in a Korean address and opening an account, when this is the complete opposite of what the ZA website says. So either there is a miscommunication between you and your Korean friend in how they signed up, or ZA have really shit internal procedures and verification polices at present.

  3. #43

    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Tuen Mun
    Posts
    15

    Yes true. Virtual anything has tons of loopholes anyway. I wouldn’t want to use it as a main bank account if I kept one.

    Don’t know why their website would state the account holder need to be residing in HK. The customer service rep said the address can be overseas. The address also need to be a proof of residency IE utility bill, bank statement etc.

    HK virtual banks are new and like everything new, something wrong gotta happen before they tighten the rules.


  4. #44

    Join Date
    May 2015
    Posts
    622
    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    For your friend in Korea, if they open an account with a Korean address, ZA do the checking that this address is correct, then nothing illegal here. But ZA's own website states that account holders should be resident in HK. They must have their own reasons for this, for example, they probably don't read Korean, cannot verify the residency easily, so thats why they only open to HK residents. Not sure how your Korean friend was able to get around this issue putting in a Korean address and opening an account, when this is the complete opposite of what the ZA website says. So either there is a miscommunication between you and your Korean friend in how they signed up, or ZA have really shit internal procedures and verification polices at present.
    I suspect the issue is HK "resident". Does that imply residing and living in HK or being a HK Resident/Permanent Resident in which thousands of overseas HKID holders are.
    Home_Mom and Sage like this.

  5. #45

    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    311
    Quote Originally Posted by bdw:
    So either there is a miscommunication between you and your Korean friend in how they signed up, or ZA have really shit internal procedures and verification polices at present.
    Or we’re being too generous in our opinion of them as fraud victims or even in having terrible systems. More likely their porous check are by design to net a greater number of users while merely giving lip service to tighter requirements if pressed for propriety. Yet here we are debating their “rules” which they don’t even care about while making them out to be a victim as they exploit it for more revenue. Well played, ZA.
    Sage, bdw and alexdown like this.

  6. #46

    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    Tuen Mun
    Posts
    15

    In the name of money of course they act how they act. Can you find any big banks who are pure ethical in their standards anyway? If financial institutions played it fair and square, there wouldn’t be rule books as thick as the old days phone books to govern them. Rules and regulations are constantly being added by the way. That is the same with anything else. If people were loving, there wouldn’t be rules and laws to govern us! Another topic.

    Anyway, a friend from the US asked us to call ZA again and we did this morning. The cs rep said the “correspondent” address has to be HK address for mailing purposes because they may contain personal information. He specifically used the term “correspondent” address. So, I suggest you put down all truthful info and give it a try if you desperately need to. It takes at least a day and a local friend had to wait a couple days for approval. Don’t know why the different waiting time. But this was back in late June when ZA just opened up.


Closed Thread
Page 5 of 5 FirstFirst ... 2 3 4 5