Opening a bank account in Singapore: personal, corporate, family office

Opening a bank account in Singapore means passing the bank's customer due diligence (CDD): before the relationship starts, the bank must identify and verify the customer, anyone acting on its behalf and its beneficial owners, and understand what the account is for. The rules are set by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in Notice 626, which applies to all banks in Singapore; each bank then sets its own eligibility criteria, document lists and fees. A personal, a corporate and a family-office account differ less in the rulebook than in how much there is to verify.

What account opening covers, and which accounts exist

The table groups account families by holder and by what the bank must establish.

Eligibility comes before price: whether a bank will open the account depends on who owns and controls the customer, where directors live, whether they hold Singpass and where the entity is registered. One person often needs several accounts in sequence, each a separate due-diligence file.

The four questions every bank asks

Every application answers four questions, each mapped to MAS Notice 626 (paragraph numbers refer to the version dated 28 March 2024; last revised 30 June 2025, effective 1 July 2025).

How beneficial owners differ from registrable controllers is explained further down this page. See KYC and customer due diligence and source of funds and wealth.

The rulebook behind the forms

What applicants experience as a bank's preference is usually a regulatory obligation on the bank.

The last two entries are expectations on banks, not rights applicants can invoke. No rule obliges a bank to accept a customer; a complete, consistent file is what an applicant controls.

Personal, corporate and family-office accounts side by side

The three account families draw on the same rules but differ sharply in scope.

Foreigners must register a business through a corporate service provider, and companies must lodge controller updates with ACRA within 2 business days of updating their own register (ACRA RORC Guidance v2.0, 16 June 2025); banks check applications against these records. See corporate accounts, the document checklist and the eight-step process.

Fees, minimum balances and digital banks at a glance

Most fees fall away above a minimum balance. These examples (bank websites, checked October 2026) are illustrations, not a ranking; more are on the business fees page.

Digital banks. MAS has issued four digital bank licences: digital full bank licences to GXS Bank and MariBank Singapore, and digital wholesale bank licences, limited to SMEs and other non-retail customers, to ANEXT Bank and Green Link Digital Bank. The MAS Financial Institutions Directory lists Trust Bank Singapore as a Full Bank (entry updated 25 August 2026); it is not one of the four digital bank licensees. Digital-bank business accounts often carry citizenship, PR or Singpass conditions on directors and major shareholders, and published rules vary between a bank's own pages, so confirm in the app. See digital banks compared and business fees and deposit insurance.

Tax forms and deposit insurance

CRS and FATCA. Every account holder completes a tax residency self-certification listing each jurisdiction of tax residence and a taxpayer identification number (TIN); entities also state their CRS status, and Passive Non-Financial Entities name their controlling persons. IRAS states that a financial institution may decline to open an account without it, and false declarations carry penalties. These are reporting regimes; whether income is taxable depends on the law of each jurisdiction where you are tax resident, so obtain advice there. See CRS and FATCA forms.

Deposit insurance. SDIC insures eligible Singapore-dollar deposits of individuals and of non-bank depositors such as companies, up to a per-depositor, per-member-bank limit; foreign-currency deposits and investment products are excluded. Limits and aggregation rules are on business fees and deposit insurance.

Who needs which account, and related concepts

Most readers start from one of four positions, which decide the realistic channels and the depth of due diligence.

Three ownership concepts are often confused. A beneficial owner is whoever the bank must identify under Notice 626 paragraph 6.14 (MAS Guidelines give more than 25% only as an example); a registrable controller is a person on the company's own ACRA register, using a more-than-25% "significant interest" test; a controlling person is the person named on a Passive NFE's CRS form. They often coincide but rest on different laws; the side-by-side table is on CRS and FATCA forms. Likewise, a digital bank licence is a type of MAS bank licence with limits on which customers it may serve; any provider's actual licence can be checked in the MAS Financial Institutions Directory.

Why applications stall, and what this site does not cover

Most delays trace back to missing or inconsistent documents, ownership that cannot be traced to individuals, an unexplained initial deposit or a company with no visible operations, which Notice 626 paragraph 8.6(c) asks banks to treat as a possible higher-risk indicator. Higher risk means more questions, not automatic refusal. Lending an account or disclosing Singpass credentials to others has been an offence since 8 February 2024 (Singapore Police Force). See red flags and a preparation checklist, the six scenarios and the FAQ.

Scope of this site. Hong Kong accounts are covered by bankaccount.hk, the Chinese deep dive on personal accounts by bankaccount.sg, VCC incorporation by vccfund.com.sg and private banking by hnwsolution.com.sg. This site is not a bank or corporate service provider and cannot predict any bank's decision. Terms are in the glossary; documents are listed under sources. To apply this to your own situation, register an enquiry through the contact options on this site.