Setting up a Hong Kong company takes a few days. Getting it a bank account is another story. For a Hong Kong company owned and run from abroad, an account with one of the big Hong Kong banks is practically impossible to get.
We have a solution that works wherever you live, and your clients will see a name they trust on your invoice: Standard Chartered or DBS.
Why a Hong Kong bank account is so hard to get
Hong Kong banks have spent the last ten years tightening their anti-money laundering checks. A company with no office in Hong Kong, no staff there and no local business is exactly the profile they turn down. The best case is weeks of questions, a visit to Hong Kong and a no at the end. The usual case is a no from the start.
That is a real problem, because a Hong Kong company without an account is a company that cannot invoice, cannot be paid and cannot pay anyone.
The solution: Standard Chartered or DBS details on your invoice
When you issue an invoice, your client pays into account details at Standard Chartered or at DBS (Development Bank of Singapore), two of the most respected names in Asian banking. For your client, it looks and works like any Hong Kong account. Your client never sees the app: on your invoice, only the bank appears.
Behind it, the account runs on the app of a licensed Hong Kong payment platform working with the bank: one for Standard Chartered, another for DBS. You manage everything from that app: receive payments, pay suppliers, convert currencies.
How it works, step by step
- Your client pays by ordinary bank transfer, using the details on your invoice: your company as beneficiary, Standard Chartered or DBS as the receiving bank.
- The bank receives the money through the normal Hong Kong clearing system. It is a real bank transfer, not a payment through an app.
- Your account number identifies the payment as belonging to your company.
- The money is credited to your account on the platform, where you see it, convert it or pay it out.
Let’s be clear, because nobody else will be: this is not a traditional bank relationship. Your company is the client of the payment platform, not of the bank. You will not get a credit line or a banker taking you to lunch. What you get is what most international companies actually need: a Hong Kong account your clients recognise, in your company’s name, that works.
More accounts if you need them
One Hong Kong company can also have:
- An account with a US bank, for clients who pay in US dollars
- An account with a payment institution that supports crypto payments and exchange into euros, British pounds and US dollars
Asia, the United States, Europe and crypto, from one Hong Kong company.
Who it is for
- Consultants, agencies and software companies billing clients around the world
- Traders and e-commerce businesses selling into Asia
- Crypto businesses that need a clean route between crypto and fiat currencies
- Entrepreneurs who want a Hong Kong company without moving to Hong Kong
Why go through FintechLex
These platforms do not accept every file. They check who owns the company, what it really does, where the money comes from and who the clients are, and they turn down files that are badly prepared. A refusal stays in their records, so you want to get it right the first time.
We prepare the whole package so the application goes through: the Hong Kong company (new or ready-made), the company secretary and registered address that Hong Kong law requires, the onboarding file, a business description that makes sense to a compliance officer, and the introduction to the right platform for your business.
Two things we always tell clients up front. Hong Kong taxes only profits sourced in Hong Kong, but a claim that your profits are earned outside Hong Kong has to be documented, and it is not automatic. And an account stays open only if the money that goes through it matches the business you described. We help you with both.
If you need a regulated company rather than a trading company, see our Hong Kong companies for sale: money lender, money service operator, trust and SFC Type 9.
Doing business abroad is more than a company and an account. I explain the questions to ask before you commit in my book What Nobody Tells You Before You Invest Abroad.
Interested?
Write to us at insight@fintechlex.com or on WhatsApp +41 787 983 770. Tell us what your company will do and where your clients are, and we will tell you which accounts fit.
Rene-Philippe
