Friday, September 18, 2009

Myanmar Citizens not allowed to open bank account (in general)

I came across this post here that questions the fact that Than Shwe or any of his fellow Burmese generals can just open a bank account in Singapore and deposit there money there since Singapore has diplomatic relationship with Myanmar and views the junta as a legitimate regime.

I can't speak for all banks in Singapore, but from my understanding of the local banks at least, Citizens of Myanmar, North Korea and a few other countries I can't recall off-hand are listed under 'high risk' countries. To open a bank account for citizens of these countries, they would need to provide their passports, valid work permits/employment passes, reason for opening the account, source of funds etc to the bank which is subjected to approval on a case by case basis. For any large transactions involving any bank accounts, it will be monitored and reported to MAS if deemed suspicious by the bank.

Granted, approval criteria is set by individual banks, and exceptions or misjudgment do happen (as we seen in cases of Taiwan's ex-president fiasco) but in general, 'no questions asked' is a bit too unlikely.

In a nutshell, what I'm trying to say here is that, its not so easy lah.
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