Hi Everyone, I can tell you as a recent new customer how the process was. You need a notorized passport and notorized utility bill. You need an employment reference letter from your employer with details such as your start date, how you are employed, salary, etc. For banks, you need a statement from the last month and then another statement from the past 6 months, showing balances, etc., with your address on it. There are some other paperwork - contracts and how you fund the account, etc. A phone interview will be required and they will focus on your employment and where the funds are coming from. Once it is all done, you will get notified a few days later of your account opening. You can then fund the account via transfer wire - they have all the instructions including SWIFT code, etc. They do use intermediary banks, and right now the USD intermediary bank is in Portugal and not in the greatest shape. I don't hold my funds in USD so I used my local currency and since the currency of my new account matches, I didn't even need an intermediary. The wire went through in under 24 hours. A banker than will make contact with you post-account opening. For brokerage accounts, be aware that they pass along the FATCA compliance fees, and as such, you will get charged $200.00 a year if you own any US securities (if not that $200 rolls to the following year). No interest is paid on savings accounts and the monthly fees are reasonable. Login is easy and customer service is excellent.
Keep in mind the bank is founded by Peter Schiff, a respected economist and founder of Euro Pacific Capital and many economic books. I actually met Peter in 2013 and 2014 in Toronto and he is a very bright guy - knows economic theory well and is a huge proponent of gold and opponent of paper money. Schiff's reputation is on the line with the bank and so it is in the bank's best interest to meet all regulatory guidelines and comply with all AML laws, FATCA, etc.
One more thing to add is that what I described above is for a personal account. For a company account I imagine that the requirements will involve even more steps (ie. there are partner agreement forms that need to be filled out and reviewed by their compliance department).
Last edited: Aug 3, 2016
