

Ask HN: How to open a U.S. bank account without stepping foot in the US - andreshb

There are endless benefits of having a U.S. bank account, but not everyone can fly from wherever they are in the world to the U.S. to open one.<p>So I was thinking of ways to open one without necessarily having to be in the U.S. and my hypothesis is that:<p>1. You can incorporate in a state online and get an EIN or FEN (you just need a Registered Agent)
2. Take that EIN/FEN and open a business account online (with WaMu it used to be possible, not sure which banks now though)
3. Have any additional paperwork sent via DHL
4. Get debit card mailed from bank, and start using your account in your country.<p>I ask because I am increasingly partnering up with entrepreneurs and freelancers in Latin America, and the whole payment situation is a mess, with a combination of wiretransfer, xoom, paypal, and even mailing cashier's checks.<p>I was wondering if any HN entrepreneurs had any experience doing this
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patio11
Your main hurdle is a regulation called Know Your Customer, which requires
banks to have some idea of the actual identity of folks who bank with them.
However, banks have _wide_ latitude in satisfying KYC. Some will accept a
faxed passport/driver's license combo, for example, others can direct you to
an affiliate in a foreign country. CitiBank, for example, will happily open an
American CitiBank account for a Japanese citizen who walks into a Japanese
CitiBank and asks for help with their international banking needs.

There are other ways. One which used to work but which I haven't tried
recently is to open a brokerage account -- which have very lax verification
requirements -- with ETrade or one of the other international low fee brokers.
They're _quite_ used to having folks abroad open accounts to invest in the US
markets. After you have a brokerage account, ETrade knows you for the purpose
of KYC, by reference to your "pre-existing business relationship". Then you
call up ETrade and say "Hey, you're also a bank. I'd like a checking account
tied to my brokerage account." Bam, done.

After you have one American bank account getting a second one is a cinch,
incidentally. ( _cough_ ING Direct _cough_.)

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andreshb
Thanks for the insight into the KYC regulation. I think so far, CitiBank/HSBC
seems the most practical option.

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cperciva
As a Canadian I found that Harris Bank is great -- when you sign up for a bank
account online, you can check a "I am a Canadian" box and everything Just
Works. (I'm guessing this is because Harris Bank is owned by Bank of
Montreal.)

I don't think Harris Bank does this for other countries, though, so if you're
not Canadian this won't help you.

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andreshb
Thanks for the tip, I got a few Canadian entrepreneurs whome this could be
useful to, but as you said, if you are not canadian, this wont help much.

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faramarz
I'm a Canadian and I have a US business chequing account with my local bank
(BMO).

All my Canadian and US accounts are managed under the same login.

See if your local bank does this.

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andreshb
Apparently, with Citibank, HSBC and Wachovia, you can do this onlinem via the
phone and e-mail.

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gautam_misra
what about the tax laws? Say I am in India and have a UK bank account(I was
studying there).If somebody pays into my UK bank account for a project I have
done, wouldn't I be taxed twice--first in UK and then in India when I transfer
the money to India.

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eliot_sykes
Anyone successfully opened a US bank account with Citibank in the UK?

