Bank issues for foreigners in Ningbo can be very frustrating, especially for those who run their won business with a company account.
对于在宁波的外籍人士来说，银行账户的问题可能非常棘手，尤其是在那些拥有自己名下的公司，并需要开通公司银行账户的情况下。
Most of our clients come to us for help with bank is to open a bank account for their companies. Once completed the registration with Market Supervision and Regulation Bureau and acquired Business License, the next step would be to open company bank accounts. At least two accounts should be opened, one capital account and one basic account with the purpose to open other normal accounts. Due to different currency for capital account, there shall be more accounts. But we won’t be getting deep into that in this article. Let’s have a look of why some foreigners with all legal documents prepared still having trouble with banks.
大部分需要我司协助办理银行事宜的客户的需求都是为其名下公司开办公司户。一旦完成了市场监督管理局的注册并拿到了营业执照，下一步便是银行开户。至少需要开两个银行账户，资本金账户及基本户，其中基本户为开通其他一般户的前提。鉴于不同币种的资本金，还需要开通其他账户，这里我们不深入探讨。让我们先来看一下为何一些外国人即便手续文书齐全依然在银行处处碰壁。
Frist, the FATF “black list” and “gray list”.
首先FATF“黑名单”和“灰名单”。
●FATF is short for Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundry and terrorist financing watchdog. It is the most influential global governments alliance for anti-money laundry.
FATF是Financial Action Task Force的首字母缩写，是国际反洗钱及恐怖主义资助的监督者。这是国际上各政府联盟在反洗钱行动中最高级别的组织。
China joined FATA in 2007. Since then, those nations on the grey list and black list became sensitive triggers at banks on domestic level. Even FATA only defined close monitoring on grey list countries, yet down to branch level, the easiest way is to say no to business related to those countries. Meaning no account opening for foreigners form countries of the list, no money transferring.
中国在2007年正式加入FATA。自此，这些黑名单及灰名单上的国家成为了国内银行的敏感词。即是FATA只定义了灰名单为严密监管，但是在分支行级别，最简单的处理办法就是拒绝任何与之相关的业务。这意味着不为名单上国籍的人士开户，也不允许转账往来这些国家。
Can you keep your business license without a Chinese bank account? In practice, it is viable as long as you declare tax to the tax bureau on time and pay in cash if tax was imposed.
没有中国银行的公司账户，是否可以继续持有营业执照呢？实际操作中是可行的，只要你按时报税并在税务部门现金缴纳税款即可。
So far, registration of one’s company is not necessary linked to nationality, however, with the policies keep tightening on immigration, and banks refuse to open bank account according to FATF black and gray list, we don’t know yet.
到目前为止，外国人注册公司不会受国籍影响，但是随着移民政策收紧，银行也拒绝为FATF黑名单灰名单国籍的人士开户，未来如何我们不得而知。
The FATF updates their black and grey list three times a year. In general, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange updates the FATF list to banks who have foreign exchange license. Reindeer Station called many different commercial banks and got the answer about the list. Each bank has their own blacklist of nations based on the FATF list, usually with more nations than the list, but not the same among banks.
FATF每年更新三次黑名单和灰名单。一般来说，国家外汇管理局会根据更新通知到具备外汇资格的机构。灵达商务问询了多家不同商业银行，得到了相关答复。每家银行都有各自内部的黑名单，一般会含有比FATF名单上更多的国家，但是不尽相同。
For example, Ukraine, which is not on the FATF list, but on certain banks’ black list, not on others.
例如，乌克兰并不再FATF的名单上，但是一部分银行却将这个国家列入黑名单而另一些并没有。
June 2021, FATF updated the list
21年6月，FATF更新了一次名单
Black list: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran
Grey list: Albania, Barbados, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Haiti, Jamaica, Mauritius, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe
Ghana has been removed from the watch list
黑名单：朝鲜，伊朗
灰名单：阿尔巴尼亚，巴巴多斯，博兹瓦纳，布基纳法索，柬埔寨，开曼群岛，海地，牙买加，毛里求斯，摩洛哥，缅甸，尼加拉瓜，巴基斯坦，巴拿马，菲律宾，塞内加尔，南苏丹，叙利亚，乌干达，也门和津巴布韦。
加纳已被移除该名单。
Further more, the asymmetric information among the bank staff pose high risk of getting the wrong message.
除此之外，银行内部员工之间信息不对称也导致了客户容易收到错误的信息。
When dealing with foreigners and overseas money transferring, which requires professional knowledge and pragmatic know-how, of which many branches and their tellers don’t have much experience with. Therefore the simple strategy to avoid risk and penalty for false operation is to say no to any foreign related business.
当处理外籍人士事宜以及海外账户汇款的时候，一般需要专业的知识和实操经验。这些分支机构的柜员可能没有经验。于是最简单的策略来规避操作风险和处罚就是直接拒绝任何涉外事宜。
Sometime, the bank client advisor who you contact with for bank service may tell you one thing and go to the counter to actually go through the process, the teller may tell you something else. Even worse, when the teller and the client advisor cannot agree with each other, they have to call for supervisor who is in charge, there might be some other story. Remember the supervisor is not service oriented, he/she may not care to explain why and how, and leaving the case to be very frustrating.
有时候，联系你想你介绍银行业务的银行客户经理可能告诉你业务的办理是一件事，到了柜台办理的时候，柜员会告诉你不是这样的。更糟糕的是，当柜员和客户经理不能达成一致的时候，他们的上级监管说的可能又是另一件事。记住，监管人员不是服务导向的，她／他可能根本不像你解释为什么或者该怎么办，这就会让情况十分复杂。
Therefore, it is very important to choose which bank you should work with, and which staff is responsible to this service you may inquiry, with important memo to keep in mind. Usually for company account, there shall be designated client advisor to follow up your case. Keep in touch with your client advisor even with language barrier, try to communicate with a translator will save you a lot of trouble in the future.
所以，选择你合作的银行非常重要，并且需要找到真正懂业务的负责人，并了解重要事。一般对于在银行开设公司户的，都会有指派的客户经理一对一服务。与客户经理保持好联系，哪怕语言不通也可以使用翻译器沟通，这能在未来为你规避很多麻烦。
In real case, Reindeer Station did help our clients whose nationalities are among the gray list successfully opened bank account. When dealing with banks, you need more than a capable translator but more professional consultation to assist you to solve instant problems but to make preparation to avoid foreseeable obstacles.
在实际案例中，灵达商务确实有成功协助灰名单国籍客户成功开户。当与银行打交道的时候，你需要比一个翻译更专业的咨询服务来帮助你解决当前的问题，并做好准备来规避未来可预见的问题。
Reference: fatf-gafi.org
对于在宁波的外籍人士来说，银行账户的问题可能非常棘手，尤其是在那些拥有自己名下的公司，并需要开通公司银行账户的情况下。
Most of our clients come to us for help with bank is to open a bank account for their companies. Once completed the registration with Market Supervision and Regulation Bureau and acquired Business License, the next step would be to open company bank accounts. At least two accounts should be opened, one capital account and one basic account with the purpose to open other normal accounts. Due to different currency for capital account, there shall be more accounts. But we won’t be getting deep into that in this article. Let’s have a look of why some foreigners with all legal documents prepared still having trouble with banks.
大部分需要我司协助办理银行事宜的客户的需求都是为其名下公司开办公司户。一旦完成了市场监督管理局的注册并拿到了营业执照，下一步便是银行开户。至少需要开两个银行账户，资本金账户及基本户，其中基本户为开通其他一般户的前提。鉴于不同币种的资本金，还需要开通其他账户，这里我们不深入探讨。让我们先来看一下为何一些外国人即便手续文书齐全依然在银行处处碰壁。
Frist, the FATF “black list” and “gray list”.
首先FATF“黑名单”和“灰名单”。
●FATF is short for Financial Action Task Force, the global money laundry and terrorist financing watchdog. It is the most influential global governments alliance for anti-money laundry.
FATF是Financial Action Task Force的首字母缩写，是国际反洗钱及恐怖主义资助的监督者。这是国际上各政府联盟在反洗钱行动中最高级别的组织。
China joined FATA in 2007. Since then, those nations on the grey list and black list became sensitive triggers at banks on domestic level. Even FATA only defined close monitoring on grey list countries, yet down to branch level, the easiest way is to say no to business related to those countries. Meaning no account opening for foreigners form countries of the list, no money transferring.
中国在2007年正式加入FATA。自此，这些黑名单及灰名单上的国家成为了国内银行的敏感词。即是FATA只定义了灰名单为严密监管，但是在分支行级别，最简单的处理办法就是拒绝任何与之相关的业务。这意味着不为名单上国籍的人士开户，也不允许转账往来这些国家。
Can you keep your business license without a Chinese bank account? In practice, it is viable as long as you declare tax to the tax bureau on time and pay in cash if tax was imposed.
没有中国银行的公司账户，是否可以继续持有营业执照呢？实际操作中是可行的，只要你按时报税并在税务部门现金缴纳税款即可。
So far, registration of one’s company is not necessary linked to nationality, however, with the policies keep tightening on immigration, and banks refuse to open bank account according to FATF black and gray list, we don’t know yet.
到目前为止，外国人注册公司不会受国籍影响，但是随着移民政策收紧，银行也拒绝为FATF黑名单灰名单国籍的人士开户，未来如何我们不得而知。
The FATF updates their black and grey list three times a year. In general, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange updates the FATF list to banks who have foreign exchange license. Reindeer Station called many different commercial banks and got the answer about the list. Each bank has their own blacklist of nations based on the FATF list, usually with more nations than the list, but not the same among banks.
FATF每年更新三次黑名单和灰名单。一般来说，国家外汇管理局会根据更新通知到具备外汇资格的机构。灵达商务问询了多家不同商业银行，得到了相关答复。每家银行都有各自内部的黑名单，一般会含有比FATF名单上更多的国家，但是不尽相同。
For example, Ukraine, which is not on the FATF list, but on certain banks’ black list, not on others.
例如，乌克兰并不再FATF的名单上，但是一部分银行却将这个国家列入黑名单而另一些并没有。
June 2021, FATF updated the list
21年6月，FATF更新了一次名单
Black list: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran
Grey list: Albania, Barbados, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Haiti, Jamaica, Mauritius, Morocco, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Philippines, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Uganda, Yemen, Zimbabwe
Ghana has been removed from the watch list
黑名单：朝鲜，伊朗
灰名单：阿尔巴尼亚，巴巴多斯，博兹瓦纳，布基纳法索，柬埔寨，开曼群岛，海地，牙买加，毛里求斯，摩洛哥，缅甸，尼加拉瓜，巴基斯坦，巴拿马，菲律宾，塞内加尔，南苏丹，叙利亚，乌干达，也门和津巴布韦。
加纳已被移除该名单。
Further more, the asymmetric information among the bank staff pose high risk of getting the wrong message.
除此之外，银行内部员工之间信息不对称也导致了客户容易收到错误的信息。
When dealing with foreigners and overseas money transferring, which requires professional knowledge and pragmatic know-how, of which many branches and their tellers don’t have much experience with. Therefore the simple strategy to avoid risk and penalty for false operation is to say no to any foreign related business.
当处理外籍人士事宜以及海外账户汇款的时候，一般需要专业的知识和实操经验。这些分支机构的柜员可能没有经验。于是最简单的策略来规避操作风险和处罚就是直接拒绝任何涉外事宜。
Sometime, the bank client advisor who you contact with for bank service may tell you one thing and go to the counter to actually go through the process, the teller may tell you something else. Even worse, when the teller and the client advisor cannot agree with each other, they have to call for supervisor who is in charge, there might be some other story. Remember the supervisor is not service oriented, he/she may not care to explain why and how, and leaving the case to be very frustrating.
有时候，联系你想你介绍银行业务的银行客户经理可能告诉你业务的办理是一件事，到了柜台办理的时候，柜员会告诉你不是这样的。更糟糕的是，当柜员和客户经理不能达成一致的时候，他们的上级监管说的可能又是另一件事。记住，监管人员不是服务导向的，她／他可能根本不像你解释为什么或者该怎么办，这就会让情况十分复杂。
Therefore, it is very important to choose which bank you should work with, and which staff is responsible to this service you may inquiry, with important memo to keep in mind. Usually for company account, there shall be designated client advisor to follow up your case. Keep in touch with your client advisor even with language barrier, try to communicate with a translator will save you a lot of trouble in the future.
所以，选择你合作的银行非常重要，并且需要找到真正懂业务的负责人，并了解重要事。一般对于在银行开设公司户的，都会有指派的客户经理一对一服务。与客户经理保持好联系，哪怕语言不通也可以使用翻译器沟通，这能在未来为你规避很多麻烦。
In real case, Reindeer Station did help our clients whose nationalities are among the gray list successfully opened bank account. When dealing with banks, you need more than a capable translator but more professional consultation to assist you to solve instant problems but to make preparation to avoid foreseeable obstacles.
在实际案例中，灵达商务确实有成功协助灰名单国籍客户成功开户。当与银行打交道的时候，你需要比一个翻译更专业的咨询服务来帮助你解决当前的问题，并做好准备来规避未来可预见的问题。
Reference: fatf-gafi.org
