Author丨Chen Zhi.
Editor丨Zhou Pengfeng.
Stirred up a thousand waves for a while.
Recently, the Monetary Authority of Singapore issued a statement saying that from January 1, 2024, local licensed cross-border remittance companies will suspend the use of non-bank and non-card channels to send money to individuals in ChinaYou can only send money to China through a bank, card network operator, or licensed financial institution, not through overseas third parties** remittances. This requirement will last for 3 months until 31 March 2024.
Screenshot of Yicai**.
The Chinese Embassy in Singapore once again reminds the citizens of New China to be highly vigilant against the risk of freezing money due to remittance through non-bank channels, and not to send money to China through remittance companies, and to choose regular bank remittances.
Screenshot of the consular page of the Chinese Embassy in Singapore.
A person familiar with the matter told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that an important reason why the Monetary Authority of Singapore introduced the above measures is that it is an important reasonIn the past year, many Chinese living and working in Singapore have remitted funds from Singapore to China, but suddenly encountered the situation that their bank accounts in China were frozen and they could not withdraw money.
Singapore** said that as of December 15 this year, it had received more than 670 reports of bank accounts frozen after remittances to China since last year, involving about S$13 million.
The above-mentioned informed person told reporters that these bank accounts were frozen, largely because the Singapore remittance company helped customers (Chinese living and working in Singapore) to send money to China through ** channels, but these ** channels may have many compliance operation problems, either unable to provide reasonable ** proof of funds, cross-border remittance purposes and other information, or may be suspected of money laundering by Chinese banking institutions into the anti-money laundering "blacklist", eventually resulting in domestic bank accounts being frozen.
He revealed to reportersAt present, the MAS has suspended the use of non-bank and non-card channels to send money to individuals in China, and Chinese living and working in Singapore can still send cross-border remittances to their families in China through banks, bank card network operators or licensed financial institutions. After all, banks and bank cards and other channels have a high degree of compliance in anti-money laundering supervision and cross-border remittance data collection, and can comply with the financial regulatory requirements of China and Singapore, so the risk of account freezing is extremely low.
The reporter learned that under normal circumstances, cross-border remittances mainly exist through various channels such as bank transfers, bank cards, e-wallets, remittance companies, and third-party remittance platforms. Among them, bank transfer is one of the most widely used methods of international remittance, but the handling fee and exchange spread charged by banks are high, and the efficiency of funds arriving in the account is slow, so more and more Chinese living and working overseas have begun to choose cross-border remittance companies to send money to their families in China.
At present, cross-border remittance companies have three main advantages, one is that the efficiency of cross-border funds is relatively high, and the fastest is basically within 1-2 days, the second is that the handling fee is relatively low, and the third is that the exchange rate is more flexible. In view of the fact that the spot exchange rate of RMB against USD has been lower by more than 1,000 basis points compared to the central parity of the RMB against US dollar during many trading hours this year, the Singapore dollar or US dollar can be exchanged for more RMB if the spot exchange rate is used at the spot exchange rate.
Seeing these "benefits", many Chinese living and working in Singapore have sent money to their families in China through cross-border remittance company channels since last year.
But,If a cross-border remittance company does not use banks and bank card channels, but uses a third-party institution to handle the cross-border remittance business (because the third-party institution provides more favorable handling fees and exchange rates, and the funds arrive faster), it may face compliance operation risks. The reason for this is that some ** institutions have cross-border money laundering, online gambling remittances and other behaviors in the past, which are easy to be blacklisted by relevant banks and financial regulatory authorities, resulting in the freezing of bank accounts handled by themSecond, the cross-border remittance application submitted by some ** institutions lacks detailed information related to the reasonable proof of funds and the use of funds, and it is easy to freeze the bank account due to doubts about the whereabouts of the fundsThird, some ** institutions may also take into account the "underground bank" business, which can easily become the key supervision object of the financial regulatory authorities, and the relevant business and customer bank accounts may face the risk of being frozen and investigated at any time.
The above-mentioned informed person told reporters that with the increase in the freezing of bank accounts, more and more Chinese living and working in Singapore have realized the huge risk of sending money to China through cross-border remittance companies (especially through third-party ** channels), and have begun to use banks and bank cards to send money to China.
StillDue to the regulations of the relevant authorities to remit more than US$50,000 in foreign exchange from overseas banks, detailed supporting information such as funds** and the purpose of funds must be submitted, as well as the nature of the ownership of funds, such as donations, family support, inheritance income, overseas investment income, etc., so many Chinese living in Singapore need to collect and sort out relevant materials before they can apply for cross-border remittance to China through banking channels, and the related workload has increased.
In addition, bank fees and exchange rate spreads are relatively high, but many Chinese living and working in Singapore also realize that cross-border remittance compliance operations can avoid accounts being frozen (funds cannot be withdrawn), although compliance operations are costly, it can indeed give extremely high capital security. He noted.
Many industry insiders believe that the above-mentioned measures introduced by the Monetary Authority of Singapore are also based on the consideration of cracking down more severely on "underground banks". This can also effectively protect the financial rights and interests of Chinese living and working in Singapore, and prevent them from accidentally falling into the "vortex" of illegal operations such as cross-border money laundering in the process of cross-border remittance.
sfc
Editor: Jiang Peipei, intern: Zhao Fengling.
21 Jun recommended reading
Wang Baoqiang, responded!
Heavy!Beijing's property market, major changes.
Suddenly a big dive!** Falling from 300 yuan to 55 yuan, large households sold at a loss