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FATCA overview

Retail Banking and Wealth Management – Hong Kong SAR

There are a number of substantial changes being made by financial regulators, governments and banks across the world, to ensure the protection and long-term safety of both the financial system and our customers’ interests.

One of these regulations is the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), effective as of 1 July 2014. FATCA is US legislation that primarily aims to prevent tax evasion by US taxpayers using non-US financial institutions and offshore investment instruments.

The degree to which customers will be affected will vary, depending on the type of account or product they hold with HSBC.

Impact to HSBC and our customers

HSBC is committed to being fully FATCA compliant in all countries where we operate. Other banks and financial organisations will also be affected. However, their approach to adopting FATCA may differ to that of HSBC.

We are currently reviewing the effect of this legislation for our customers. To comply with the new regulations, HSBC may need to engage you from time to time to help us understand you better. If you have multiple relationships with us, you may be approached by different members or businesses of the HSBC Group. To help us serve you better and capture your information accurately, in light of different laws or regulations in different countries, your response to all our requests will be much appreciated.

Additional information

To illustrate examples of documentation necessary for FATCA classification purposes in certain scenarios, please refer to our table of examples about FATCA Supplementary Information Sheet. If you are also required to provide the document code S8 (i.e. not a US citizen but with US birthplace), please complete Part B, C and D and sign back to support your foreign status. Please note that this HSBC form is for reference only and is not exhaustive.

W-9 form: This is a link to the withholding certificate referred to as a ‘W-9’ on the IRS website. This form is completed to confirm US tax status.

W-8 forms: This is a link to the withholding certificates referred to as ‘W-8s’ on the IRS website. This is a series of forms that are completed to confirm non-US tax status.

In order to provide customers with further support when completing IRS W forms, we have provided some additional customer guidance for the forms W-9 and W-8BEN.

(Last updated July 2021)