Hong Kong offshore company for physical goods trading

[mikemcd]

Hi everyone,

Long-time follower of this forum although I don't participate much.

I do physical trading (timber) from Asia to Middle East and USA. I invoice my clients from my Hong Kong company, and then I pay the suppliers from there.

Annual revenue is around $1M, and I'm working with Sleek for the taxes and using Airwallex as bank account.

It works as a temporary setup, but it's not scalable:
- Sleek support is horrible and I worry they'll mess up my audit and get denied offshore status. I basically never speak with them.
- Airwallex has a nice modern interface, but it charges 0.3% of each incoming transaction and it doesn't give any interest on the money deposited in the account.

I have good sales forecast for next year and I'm reconsidering the whole setup. Alternative to Sleek for corporate secretary, virtual office, accounting, and audit, and alternative to Airwallex as main bank account. Planning to visit HK in January to open an account with HSBC (it has to be in person), but I wanted to post this here and get the view of more experienced members to make sure I'm walking in the right direction.

Thank you!

 

[daniels27]

How much are you paying to Sleek for accounting, secretary, address, fillings etc. per year? How many transactions do you have?

Have you considered using Amnis instead? They charge 5 USD per incoming SWIFT and pay interest.

HSBC is a bit harder, expect opening to be up to 3 months, even fit residents.

 

[brianK]

If you have a lot of smaller transfer 5 USD is much to pay per incoming transaction. On the other hand have you large amount transfers 0.3% is too much. Best would be to find a real bank for your business if possible.

Where do you live, country ?

 

[daniels27]

If you have a lot of smaller transfer 5 USD is much to pay per incoming transaction. On the other hand have you large amount transfers 0.3% is too much. Best would be to find a real bank for your business if possible.

The sender also pays for a SWIFT transfer. Nobby is using that for less than like 50 in most places.

And most Hong Kong banks charge 20 USD for SWIFT, with wind exceptions like Citi.

Real bank in Hong Kong? Are you serious? It causes nothing but trouble and fees.

 

[linusAG]

Planning to visit HK in January to open an account with HSBC (it has to be in person), but I wanted to post this here and get the view of more experienced members to make sure I'm walking in the right direction.

Do you have enough business connections with Hong Kong or mainland China? If not, It will be hard to open a HSBC business account.
To be honest, HSBC is a big bank, but it is not the best choice and is even more expensive than Airwallex.

 

[Mary Palamarenko]

As for banking, HSBC is solid, but you could also explore other options like Standard Chartered or DBS for more flexibility. Just make sure to compare fees and account features, especially for international transactions