Prepaid Master Card in Hong Kong

[pomegranate]

Hello,

 

In case you would like to get a professional or personal bank account in Hong Kong, you may be interested in this service :

lien : professional and personal bank account

It seems to be hassle free and free.

For the personal account, the service is available.

For the business account, they are still on alpha.

They are compatible with Stripe and Paypal.

 

Edit :

As said by @taxout it is not a bank account. Nevertheless, it gives a bank account number. Which is necessary to use stripe for a company.

I have just found out this service, so I can't tell more informations for now.

 

[taxout]

NEAT is not a bank account!

 

It is a prepaid MasterCard. Useful in the way a prepaid card can be useful if you don't have a credit/debit card, or want an extra card as a backup.

 

But not to be confused with a bank account.

 

Note that topping up the NEAT card can be awkward.

 

Also note that only HK$ purchases are fee-free with the card.

Edited December 19, 2017 by taxout

[pomegranate]

Thank you for these informations.

You are right, it is not a bank account. I will see if I can edit the title of the topic.

Nevertheless, it is still interesting as it gives a bank account number, which is necessary when you use Stripe.

Also, it is possible to open the "account" at distance, free of charge (I think).

@taxout Thank you again for post.

 

 

[taxout]

I don't know what STRIPE is and what it requires.

 

But I do know that you do not get your own bank account number with NEAT. You get your own MasterCard number. That's different.

 

You do get a bank account number at the Bank of China Hong Kong into which you can transfer funds for your NEAT card. But that's a general bank account associated with NEAT which all cardholders use, not your own personal bank account. Eact time you transfer funds to that bank account, you have to notify NEAT, either directly or in the transfer. Otherwise they don't know whose card the transfer applies to. So it's much much different than having your own bank account.

Edited December 19, 2017 by taxout

[Rimmer]

I have altered the topic title and will move the topic to the banking forum

[pomegranate]

1 minute ago, Rimmer said:

I have altered the topic title and will move the topic to the banking forum

Thank you.

[pomegranate]

I don't know how they manage it. So @taxout what you said is interesting.

 

Neverthless, this is what I can read on their page https://business.neat.hk :

 

Get a dedicated Hong Kong bank account number to receive payments from your customers and disbursements from e-commerce platforms  (we support  Stripe, PayPal, Amazon and more).

 

That is much interesting for guys who set up a company in HK, but can't get a bank account there at first.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2017 by pomegranate

[taxout]

That's interesting. That's for the business account, which is brand-new. My comments above apply to the personal account, which they've been offering for about a year.

 

I'd be curious to know how they handle the "real bank account number" issue. In the past couple of years Hong Kong banks have become exceptionally cautious about opening new business accounts.