I received approval off the 投審會 (investment committee?) for my business about 2/3 weeks ago and have been told to set up a 籌備戶 (preperatory account) and put my money in there to prove that it’s real so I can get to the next step of the application…
Opening a preperatory account is proving to be a lot more complicated than I had expected. I thought I’d done it with CTBC last week only for them to tell me after completing the application that they will notify me if I am approved ‘after 2 weeks’. Today I asked about the application and they said they didn’t know how much longer it would take…
My local E. Sun bank told me I can’t register with them because my business will be at an address I’m renting from my accountant. Fubon said it would take 3 weeks and Taishin said 3 months…
There are two good banks that I know of for opening a preparatory account, Taiwan Bank and Hua Nan. I chose Hua Nan for my application. These two banks are well known for preparatory accounts because they don’t require you to get a special preparatory account yinzhang just for opening that one account. With Hua Nan, the whole process took about an hour, and then after I got the second approval from the Investment Commission, it took about another hour to get the account turned into a full company account.
A tip for you, when you open the preparatory account, don’t put more than the absolute minimum for opening the account in when you open it. Transfer the remaining capital into the account from one of your other accounts, so that the bank book shows you are the person who has transfered it in.
Amazing thank you. Did you already have an account with Huanan? And did you try a specific branch? I will call my local branch tomorrow and see what they have to say.
Yes, I had a personal account, and then transferred startup capital from my personal account to my prep account. That way my name was definitely in the prep account bank book as having transferred the money in, which simplified things later with the Investment Commission. If you transfer in from a non Hua Nan personal account, I don’t know if your name will show up on the prep account bank book, but as long as you have proof of the transfer it should be okay. They really care about where the startup capital came from, you may also need to prove where you initially earned the money that you are using for startup capital.
I did mine at the Hua Nan branch in Xinzhuang, and I also accompanied my friend to open his at the Hua Nan branch near Xinpu Station in Banqiao.
Also, after you have put the money in the prep account, you will need an accountant to do a verification of the amount, and you will use this letter to do the second application to the Investment Commission. If you would like to find an account who is familiar with the process, I can recommend my accountant, although I don’t know if he speaks English.
I think I showed them the previous year’s tax statement proving I earned at least the amount of the startup capital. Payslips would probably also work.
Last question, do you have any idea what CTBC or other banks are doing when they take 2-3 weeks to approve the account? Are they in contact with the 投審會？ Like if I open another account at a bank that’s faster, will that in any way affect any of the official processes?
I’m quite annoyed at CTBC for not being upfront about how long it was going to take and am not really in the mood to wait for them to notify me if they approve…
So I called my local Huanan and got told that they rocommend that I use a bank that I already have an account with. They said that they couldn’t guarantee that they could open a 籌備戶…
So my local 玉山銀行 told me that I needed to go to their 分行 near the address of the office address I’m renting so that they could send people to inspect my office space. That local 分行 told me on the phone that I needed to go to my local branch because that’s the address that I live at!
I can only speak for my experience at Hua Nan, where they did the whole process in about an hour. The only thing they checked was that my company name had been reserved by me (which I’m guessing you already did), and that was through an online portal. They didn’t even ask to see my Investment Commission approval. I would strongly advise you to go to the Hua Nan nearest the address on your ARC or your proposed company address.
Hua nan - preparatory account, took about 3 hours to open in person and they looked at all my documents including from investment committee. Later converted to regular bank account. Their customer service wasn’t great and the bank looks run down so I went looking for other banks.
E.Sun - they sent a banker to my registered address and took photos of me and my employees working around a table, wanted some proofs of existing invoices and sales, which luckily I was able to provide, and they opened the account in person in about 4 hours with a follow-up visit. There was a foreigner next to me trying to open a company bank account who got rejected because he mentioned he might work with crypto (but they were asking him a bunch of leading questions, and he also said he didn’t work at his registered address).
Standard Chartered - they did a 2 week background check and I had to provide existing company 401Ks (the tax reporting form you complete every 2 months), and then they opened the account. Their site is pretty bad (Chinese only) and their corporate banking site only works on a windows machine with a physical security key plug-in. I never used their bank account since it was so crappy and I kept forgetting my password (they required you set up multiple users and user roles like you are an IT admin at your company, they gave me a big manual and it took me a whole day with multiple calls). No mobile app.
E.Sun corporate banking is probably the best experience for me. But they refused to give foreigners corporate mortgages and Hua nan agreed, so I stopped using ESun.
Hua Nan is a very old, traditional bank, and I refuse to use my personal account with them due to some ordeal I had with my debit card about a year ago, but for the prep account they are definitely the easiest. Once the company is fully registered you can move to another bank with better services.
DBS SME banking might also be good but I haven’t tried. I know they have an English mobile business app.
Btw the preparatory process is only for foreigners. Locals don’t have to deal with that process, infact they can skip the investment committee completely and open a company with bank account in less than a week, and they don’t need to prove where their assets are from since there’s no investment committee involved in company changes.
They can skip the investment commission process but they still need the prep account. They put their capital investment there and have it verified by an accountant, then take that to city hall along with the other incorporation documents to register the company. Easily doable in a week though.
If anyone’s interested, for sake of registering company, NWOHRs follow the same path as full citizens with HHR. InvesTaiwan confirmed that to me by email. Although some parts of the registration process that citizens with HHR can do online have to be done in person by NWOHRs, I guess cos of the ID number format issue.