2023, New rules on openning a Bank Account
Documents needed to Open a Corporate Bank Account in Malaysia
Once the Company is successfully incorporated, the Company Secretary should furnish you the documents below:
- Section 14 – Superform [Application for registration of a Company]
- Section 15 – Notice of Registration [Certificate issued by SSM to confirm the Company is successfully incorporated]
- Section 17 – Certificate of Incorporation
- Section 46 – Particular of registered address
- Section 58 – Particular of directors
- Section 58 & 236 (2) – Appointment of first Company Secretary
- Section 78 – Particular of shareholders and shares
These documents are crucial for the banker to initiate a bank account opening in Malaysia. Other supporting required to open a corporate bank in Malaysia are:
NRIC/Passport
Business plan
Proof of residential address
Tenancy agreement of business address (if any)
Different banks will have different requirements and steps of e-KYC depending on the bank policy. However, Malaysian banks still requires for the bank documents to be signed physically by the stakeholders and to mail the original signed copies to the appointed Company Secretary for certified true copy procedure. Only certified documents are accepted for the banker to initiate the bank account opening process.
The resolution to open bank account will be prepared by the banker and once signed, the appointed Company Secretary will be required to sign off the document and certified true copy as well.
Timeline of a Corporate Bank Opening in Malaysia
The estimated timeline given by most banks to successfully open a corporate bank account in Malaysia is normally between 2 to 3 weeks. However, if further investigations are needed, a longer time might be required.
For instance, some banks such as HSBC will not accept a Company who has corporate shareholder. This is because the process of KYC is more complex, and the risk is high. This will also drag the estimated timeline to open a corporate bank account to around 2 months due to compilation of documents relating to corporate shareholder.
For those who are not physically present in Malaysia, Paul Hype Page & Co. banker contacts will normally reach out to the client via online communication such as Skype meeting, Zoom meeting or Google meet in order to initiate their e-KYC process.
Once that is done and all background check are clear, the longest they might require to open a corporate bank account might be 3 weeks. It depends on the e-KYC progress between the banker and the client.
Reasons why corporate bank account opening in Malaysia is not successful for foreign owned Company
Even though the bank account opening in Malaysia are slightly easy compared to Singapore, it does not mean all bank account opening will be successful. Some of the reasons why the bank account is not able to be opened are:
Stakeholder background is not clean– A passport/ID is needed for the banker to do a background check. If the stakeholder is deemed as from FATF country risk, political exposed person (PEP) or special interest person (SIP), then there might be a chance where bank account will not be successful.
Business plan is not convincing – For a Company to open a corporate bank account, one of the items needed is the business plan. If the business plan is deemed shady or not convincing, banker might have more inquiries, or they might not proceed with the bank account opening altogether.
Failure to follow bank procedures – One of the most crucial procedures when banker initiate a bank account opening is the e-KYC. If the client keeps on delaying the e-KYC procedure or failed to furnish the supporting documents requested by the banker, there is a possibility where banker will deem the stakeholder not serious in opening the bank account and will stop the procedure altogether.