Fenella

Hi,
We have our MM2H FD with May Bank but would like to open another FD account with another bank eg., HSBC.
Is it possible to do this on the basis of the MM2H visa alone? We do not have an address in Malaysia (only be passing through).

Thanks for any help.

bakedbean

I would have thought it was OK to do.

InVinoVeritas

I'm not so sure. You will need to ask, Fenella. I have a feeling they will want a Malaysian address or a work permit. I think they may well ask for this even for the account you have already opened for MM2H, although they will probably give you a grace period.

Davita

I opened an HSBC Premier account in KL on my MM2H, which I still have, and never lived in Malaysia and only visited a couple of times.

InVinoVeritas

Yes that is a feature of HSBC Premier where it is down to the "home" branch to deal with any statutory requirements.

Davita

When I opened the KL Premier account it became the 'home' branch as I used the MM2H FD (MYR150,000) as part of the Premier FD (MYR200,000) requirement.
I never had an address in Malaysia.
Later I moved the 'home' branch to Jakarta as the FD requirement was much less and the interest on IDR much higher.
The account, and MM2H FD, in KL's HSBC still remains.

Fenella

We don't have an HSBC account here in The Netherlands. Just wondered if we could walk into HSBC in KL, show our MM2H visas and open an account with them (without an address) or would they accept a PO box ?

Thanks in advance for sharing any experiences.

bakedbean

I don't have accounts in Malaysia with HSBC....but.... I do know that CIMB will take fixed deposits from non-residents. See link below and page down to Eligibility and Requirements. This is for foreign currency deposits...not sure about ringgits.
Foreign Currency Fixed Deposit

NeonHippy

Hi Fenella, I opened an account in Penang at the beginning of this year in the Georgetown branch. They were very happy to accept our MM2H provisional letter an an introducer. We have yet to move to Malaysia and HSBC were happy to accept my UK address. They have even written to us here.

To be fair we were already HSBC customers in the UK but Georgetown could not see our UK accounts to verify this so I don't think it will be a problem for you that you are not current customers.

Fenella

Thanks bakedbean. Interest rates look pretty crappy though (for Euros anyway).

Fenella

Hi NeonHippy,
Thanks for the answer. Thing is, we won't have any address, so won't be able to receive mail anyway. We are going to open a PO box when we're in KL in July. We'll see how that works and I'll report back.

bakedbean

You get better rates if you are CIMB Preferred but, yeh, which currency gives you good interest rates these days

Davita

When I opened our HSBC account in KL we gave a friend's address in Vancouver, which is still on file, but all transactions have been by ATM's or internet transfer.

@bb...My HSBC FD's in IDR get 8.73% PA (gross) on 3 month call but the Indonesian Govt withhold 20%.. so I net 7% PA.
I could file for taxes and recover the 20% but that opens the door for the RI taxman to investigate my world-wide income.
By comparison.....living in Malaysia on MM2H does have taxation benefits..

Scuba Tyke

We placed our MM2H FDs with CIMB bank 3 weeks ago at 3.8%, all we needed was our passports, MM2H approval letter and proof of address (utility bill).
On our next visit to the branch the manageress advised us that the FD rate available during March had now gone up to 4.2%. All in all I found CIMB Port Dickson very easy to deal with, they knew all about the MM2H scheme and made the whole experience simple and easy. We opened a joint standard savings account with them as well to use as an everyday account, that gave us an ATM/Mastercard debit card. Their online app 'CIMB Clicks' is good too. The only issue we had was that you have to go in via the app or at an ATM and set all the limits for various transactions. They hadn't mentioned that, but until you do the initial settings are zero, so you can't use the cards as the system reports that you have exceeded the limit. Once we discovered that requirement, via the helpline after some failed transactions, we were up and running. CIMB were much better that Maybank, the person we spoke to there had very sketchy knowledge and the best FD rate offered was 3.3%, plus they wanted to see our marriage certificate before opening a joint account.

bakedbean

Totally off topic (but the PD topic is now so old, it's been closed up**), when are you moving to PD, Scuba? And was the fact that you found Tetley freeflow in Giant Port Dickson have anything to do with the decision?

**Maybe should start up a new thread