Opening Business Accounts as a Non-Resident Director: 7 Attempts in Singapore, Hong Kong and the US (2026)

Between mid-2025 and September 2026 I applied for, or had to re-verify, seven business accounts and card processors across three companies in Singapore, Hong Kong and the US. Three opened, switching on outgoing payments for one of them waited 12 days for a signature, one was refused at the inquiry form, and two I never finished. Every provider involved was a payment platform, a fintech platform or a card processor. I didn't apply to a single bank, so none of this tells you how banks behave.

I direct three companies: a Singapore private company, a Hong Kong private company and a Delaware single-member LLC. Below is every account attempt my records hold for them, with dates. I've taken out entity names, balances, fees and account numbers, and left in what each provider asked for and where things stopped. Seven attempts by one founder isn't a sample, so "3 of 7 opened" tells you nothing about your own odds.

The seven attempts at a glance

Times are UTC+8, which is Singapore and Hong Kong time. A "~" marks an end of the interval I've inferred rather than recorded. Rows 4, 6 and 7 are card processors, not accounts that hold money.

Singapore company

Statrys

I never applied for this account on its own. It came with the incorporation package I bought from Statrys on 2026-03-30. Statrys holds a Singapore Major Payment Institution licence through Statrys Singapore Pte Ltd (statrys.com/sg/about-us, accessed 2026-09-30). The company was incorporated on 2026-04-23 and the account went live on 2026-05-04. I count the 11 days from incorporation because that date is on record; the day the account review itself started isn't.

The paperwork was the incorporation due-diligence pack, all e-signed: due-diligence forms for the company and for me, the constitution, director and secretary consents, the registers of controllers and nominees, the share application, and an indemnity from me to the resident nominee director Statrys supplied. No interview, nothing in person. I'm the sole signatory on the account.

Section 145(1) of the Companies Act 1967 says every company needs at least one director who is ordinarily resident in Singapore (Singapore Statutes Online, accessed 2026-09-30). I live elsewhere, so my company needed one, and my incorporation provider arranged the nominee. Section 145(5) makes a resignation invalid if it would leave the company with no resident director, so a nominee can't step down until a replacement is in place.

Airwallex, 17 hours

At 18:09 on 2026-09-02 I added the Singapore company as a second entity under an Airwallex login I already had. Approval came at 11:27 the next morning. Airwallex (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. is licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a Major Payment Institution, licence number PS20200541 (Airwallex help centre, accessed 2026-09-30).

The form pulled the company from the Singapore registry, then asked for the industry, a product description, the website, a monthly turnover band, the countries we operate in, the directors and beneficial owners (with a question about nominee or third-party arrangements) and an online ID check on me. Whether it wanted proof of address, I didn't write down.

Receiving money and card acceptance were both approved on that form. Card acceptance came with a per-transaction cap and a 12-day delayed-settlement reserve. The first incoming deposit settled on 2026-09-16.

Then the payout switch, 12 days

Sending money out wasn't part of the approval. I raised it on 2026-09-03, the day we were approved. It needed Airwallex's own authorisation-letter template, signed by a director other than the applicant.

The single-director route didn't apply because the company has two directors, and the portal offered the nominee as the only possible second signer. From there on, Airwallex had nothing to do with the delay. The nominee wanted an indemnity before signing. The corporate secretary handled that as a board resolution, billed separately, with drafts on 2026-09-08 and 2026-09-11. The letter was signed on 2026-09-15.

On 2026-09-20 the payout screen opened with no restriction on it. The first outgoing payment, a transfer to the company's own account at another provider, went out on the morning of 2026-10-05 and arrived within minutes.

PagBrasil

Around 2026-08-24 I filled in PagBrasil's web inquiry form about Brazil-local card acquiring and Pix. The next day they said no, citing "payment seasonality and segment". Nobody asked for a document.

The three I skipped

I looked at three more Singapore options and didn't apply to any of them. At the time I read all three as needing Singpass, Singapore's national digital identity, which I don't have because I live outside Singapore. Re-reading their pages for this log, only one of them strictly requires it.

ANEXT Bank requires the applicant to "have a Singpass account and be authorised to retrieve Myinfo Business details through Corppass" (ANEXT FAQ). OCBC keeps instant opening for businesses "wholly owned by Singapore citizens or Permanent Residents"; anyone else applies online, "after which the Bank will contact you" (OCBC). YouBiz, a MAS-licensed e-money issuer, asks for "at least one director or authorised representative who's a Singapore resident with Singpass" (YouBiz guide). All three pages were read on 2026-09-30.

So ANEXT is the only outright no. OCBC sends everyone else to an online application and a call from the bank. YouBiz needs a Singapore-resident director or authorised representative with Singpass, which for me would have meant the nominee again.

Delaware LLC

Mercury: a re-verification, not an opening

In 2026 Mercury, a fintech business banking platform, moved its accounts from one partner bank to another, and I had to re-verify mine. The switch itself is covered in a separate piece on the Column move.

Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

I started on 2026-06-11. On 2026-06-16 the verification closed, the account at the new partner bank opened and the balances moved, all on the same day. Every question was about how the business runs:

• re-confirming the company's details
• an activity questionnaire: customer type, client industries, how we sell and where
• the website
• countries we operate in, and countries we send money to and receive it from
• bands for expected balance and monthly volume
• source of funds, which I backed with a statement from another account
• why the business needs a US account, and what it will be used for

I had the formation certificate and the IRS letter confirming the EIN ready to upload. Nobody asked for either.

Hong Kong company

Shopify Payments HK, step 4 of 6

On 2026-05-15 I started setting up Shopify Payments for the Hong Kong company. Step 4, "Account Representative", asked for a Hong Kong identity-card number. I stopped there that day, and the store went back to a payments account the company already had.

Shopify's help page says something different. For a corporation, the account representative gives "a personal identification number", with the example "Citizens of Hong Kong provide their HKID, or citizens of China provide their Passport number". It also says a company's representative is "not required to personally live in Hong Kong SAR" (Shopify Help Center, accessed 2026-09-30). Either the form changed after May or there was a route I missed. My records don't say which.

The same page describes a step I never reached. Payouts go to an HKD checking account "with a bank in Hong Kong SAR", and it rules out flex-currency accounts and "services that mimic bank accounts, such as some fintech platforms". None of the company's accounts is with a bank, so that step would probably have stopped me too. I never got far enough to find out.

Stripe HK

I created the account around June 2025, never finished onboarding, and didn't note why. About nine months later Stripe sent an inactivity notice. It's in the table because it happened.

What repeated

Every yes came from a payment institution or a fintech platform, and none took longer than about 11 days.

On the one attempt where I can compare the two, the provider was not the slow part. Airwallex approved in 17 hours; my own company needed 12 days to produce one signature. Once a nominee sits on your register, whatever they ask for before signing is part of your onboarding time, and it sits outside anything the provider controls.

At Airwallex, money in and money out were treated differently. Receiving and card acceptance were approved on the application, and card acceptance got a cap and a reserve rather than a refusal. Sending money needed the extra signature.

The card processors never got as far as asking for documents: one refused an inquiry form, one had a field I couldn't fill, and one I left half done.

How this lines up with the Banking Access Index

The Banking Access Index tracks what providers publish about non-resident access for US companies. Two of its rows touch this log.

Mercury. The index lists the documents Mercury publishes for opening an account: formation documents, the IRS EIN document and photo ID (mercury.com/faq, accessed 2026-09-07). My re-verification asked for neither document and went after activity, volume and source of funds. A re-verification isn't an opening, so this doesn't contradict the index; it's one record of what an existing customer was asked.

Airwallex. The index records Airwallex's onboarding for US companies as fully remote. My two Airwallex rows are for the Singapore company, a different Airwallex entity, so they don't test that row. They fit it, though: an online form, an online ID check, no interview.

What the log can't show

It can't show anything about banks. It doesn't cover how the Hong Kong company's and the LLC's original accounts were opened, because those predate my records: that's seven more openings with no timeline. It leaves out the providers I ruled out before applying, apart from the three Singpass cases. And a founder with their own resident director, a different line of business or a longer history with a provider could get a different answer at every step.

If I were setting up the Singapore company again, the first thing I'd ask is who the second signatory would be and what they'd want before signing anything for a provider. I found out when Airwallex asked for the letter. And before picking a card processor, I'd open its onboarding form and look for a local ID field, since that's where the Hong Kong attempt stopped.

Sources: my own account records and case files, read 2026-09-30; the outgoing-payment row was updated from the same records on 2026-10-14. Provider requirements are linked where quoted.

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Key Takeaways

• Seven attempts between mid-2025 and September 2026, across a Singapore company, a Hong Kong company and a Delaware LLC. None was an application to a licensed bank.
• Recorded waits ran from 17 hours (Airwallex) to about 11 days (Statrys, counted from incorporation because the start of its review isn't on record).
• The longest wait was inside the company: 12 days to get the nominee director's signature on Airwallex's authorisation letter before outgoing payments could be switched on.
• At Airwallex, receiving money and card acceptance were approved on the application. Card acceptance came with a per-transaction cap and a 12-day settlement reserve.
• Singapore requires one ordinarily resident director (Companies Act 1967, s145). Where a provider needed Singpass, the only person on my register who could provide it was the nominee.

Related Reading

• How to Open a US Bank Account Remotely (Non-Resident 2026)
• Mercury Is Switching Partner Banks to Column N.A.: What Non-Resident LLC Owners Need to Check
• Virtual Account vs. Real US Bank Account: Why Payout Platforms Reject Your Routing Number
• Cross-Border Banking Stack: Beyond a US Account
• Banking Redundancy for Cross-Border Founders
• Business Account Frozen: What Triggers Freezes
• Stripe vs PayPal vs Paddle: Fee Breakdown

References

• Singapore Statutes Online: Companies Act 1967, section 145 — resident-director requirement and resignation rule (accessed 2026-09-30)
• Statrys: About us (Singapore) — Major Payment Institution licence (accessed 2026-09-30)
• Airwallex Help Centre: How is Airwallex licensed and regulated — MAS licence PS20200541 (accessed 2026-09-30)
• ANEXT Bank: Eligibility and requirements FAQ — Singpass and Myinfo Business requirement (accessed 2026-09-30)
• OCBC: Business Growth Account — instant opening limited to Singapore-owned businesses (accessed 2026-09-30)
• YouBiz guide — resident director with Singpass (accessed 2026-09-30)
• Shopify Help Center: Shopify Payments requirements in Hong Kong SAR — representative ID and payout-account rules (accessed 2026-09-30)
• Mercury FAQ — documents Mercury publishes for opening an account (accessed 2026-09-07)

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Disclosure

Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

Global Solo earns affiliate commissions from some providers mentioned, including Mercury. Editorial selection precedes any commission agreement; see our methodology.