Legal information

Important information about procedures for opening a new account

To help the government fight the funding of terrorism and money laundering activities, Federal law requires all US financial institutions to obtain, verify, and record information that identifies each person who opens an account.

What this means for you 

When you open an account for an entity, at a minimum we will ask for: 

  • Documentation to prove the:
    – legal existence,
    – ownership structure, and
    – persons authorised to represent the entity account-holder
  • The entity's registration number
    – for US entities, this is the entity's TIN
    – for entities incorporated outside the US, this is either the entity's TIN (if it has one) or the registration number assigned by the registrar of companies or similar government agency at which the formation papers were filed. 
  • We will also ask for identification documents for all authorized signers on entity accounts, and for significant beneficial owners of entity account-holders (generally, all those with direct or indirect ownership interest of at least 20 per cent).  
  • Depending on the nature of the products and services we are providing to you, we might ask for additional information, e.g. financial statements, annual reports, the identity of your major customers, etc.

In some cases, we may request identification documents for persons or entities that were already customers of Handelsbanken's New York branch before the effective date of this Federal Law (October 1, 2003) in order to update our records.

In all cases, Handelsbanken will protect the confidentiality of the information provided by its customers to the extent permitted by law.