Form W-8BEN is a requirement of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for U.S. tax reporting for non-U.S. persons. Non-U.S. persons are subject to U.S. tax withholding (generally 30%) on certain types of income received from U.S. sources, such as interest and dividends.

Non-U.S. persons are required to complete and submit a duly completed Form W-8BEN for the reasons as below:
• to establish that you are not a U.S. person; and
• to claim that you are the beneficiary of the U.S.-sourced income for which the Form W-8BEN is provided; and
• to claim, if applicable, a reduced rate of, or exemption from, withholding tax by being a resident of a foreign country with which the United States has an income tax treaty

If you would like to know more about the instructions for Form W-8BEN and tax treaties, please visit the IRS websites or consult your tax adviser.

Before your W-8BEN status is expired, you need to submit a new Form W-8BEN to continue the service. You may submit Form W-8BEN in the following ways: email us at us-tax-processing.hk@sc.com, upload to our Online Form Submission portal, submit to any of our branches or mail to client On-Boarding Deposit Ops, 13/F Standard Chartered Tower, 388 Kwun Tong Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Settlement day of the U.S. securities markets is 2 business days after trade execution day (T+2). For buy orders, debit of the purchase amount from your account and deposit of the purchased securities will take place 2 business days after trade execution day. For sell orders, sales proceeds will be credited to your account 2 business days after sale execution day.

Actual settlement date is subject to market arrangement which maybe beyond the stated date due to time zone difference, different lead time required or suspension of business or trading.

The Bank does not allow buying of OTC stocks on the Online Securities Trading platform.

W-8BEN status is not yet available on Online Securities Trading platform.

If your W-8BEN status has expired, you will still be able to sell U.S. stocks. However, you will not be able to purchase U.S. stocks. It is advised to renew your W-8BEN status 3 months before expiration.

When our clients who are not U.S. Persons choose to invest in U.S. securities, they are required to furnish us with a Form W-8BEN to declare their non-U.S. Person status as well as whether they would be the beneficial owners of the income to be distributed in respect of such U.S. securities. Submission of the Form W-8BEN does not exempt you from the U.S. withholding tax imposed on dividends. This means, dividend payments are always net of withholding tax when credited to your account.

You may transfer U.S. securities by filling in the Transfer Request Form by visiting any of our branches or by calling Securities Trading Team. There may be third party fees or charges involved with respect to such transfers, which shall be borne by the clients.

All share transfers may take up to 14 working days to be completed (if all necessary documentation is accurate and complete). As share transfers involve other brokers, you will have to liaise with their other brokers to obtain the necessary documentation that is required to be submitted by them at their end. We may help to facilitate this on a best effort basis, but we bear no responsibility to provide any external party forms or for the accuracy of any information obtained from an external party.

There are different types of ADR fees that can be charged in the market which can be Corporate Action (“CA”) / event by event specific (or more broadly based which are not solely related to corporate events). These fees are usually charged by the ADR depositary bank/ Depository Trust Company.

Some example of ADR Fees:
1. Custody fees/ depositary services fees
2. Dividend distribution fees
3. Foreign currency exchange fees
4. Voting of shares fees

The frequency of CA related fees charged on ADRs are largely dependent on the frequency of the dividend payout.

ADR fees that are CA specific, a common practice for collection of the custody fee is for the ADR depositary bank to subtract the amount of the fee from the gross dividends paid by the bank to ADR holders.

However, a number of ADR issues do not pay periodic dividends, which prevents the fees from being collected through the above-described mechanism.
In this case, ADR depositary bank/ Depository Trust Company charges the fee to its users (i.e., banks and broker-dealers) who pass them on to their customers.

ADR fees that are not directly CA specific are can vary by security and issuer. For ADR fees which are not directly CA specific billing will process the invoices back to investors through monthly auto debit.
For yearly fees, such as a servicing fee by the depository, CA will announce a general informational notice as a courtesy.

The recommendation is to have the client review the prospectus to understand what fees may apply from an issuer‘s perspective. We strongly advise clients to find out the fees being charged before buying ADRs.

Fees can be viewed in the section of the registration statement typically titled “Description of American Depository Shares” or “Description of American Depository Receipts.” Typically, fees are assessed per ADR. For example, 1000 ADRs could be assessed a fee ranging from USD20 to USD50.

Like any other investment, clients should learn as much as they can about the company before they invest. Prior to investing in an ADR, Investors should review the fees reported in the Form F-6 registration statement under the Securities Act of 1933 available through the SEC’s web site at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml at no charge.

No. The Bank is only passing the fees charged to the Bank to clients who purchase ADR.