Opening a Bank Account in Saint Kitts and Nevis
What a bank asks a newcomer for is not set by banking law here but by the Anti-Money Laundering Regulations made under the Proceeds of Crime Act. They require identification procedures before a business relationship is established, define identification as establishing a person's true identity and obtaining conclusive evidence supported by independent documentation from a reliable source, and let the bank finish the verification afterwards only where the business is not urgent and the money-laundering risk is small. Nothing in them lists documents. The reason a Kittitian bank asks for a reference, a utility bill and a source-of-funds explanation is this regulation, and the specific list is the bank's own policy rather than law.
At a glance
- What sets the document requirements
- Anti-Money Laundering Regulations, not the Banking Act
The Regulations are subsidiary legislation under section 72 of the Proceeds of Crime Act, Cap. 4.28, and are printed with it.
- Timing
- Before the relationship is established
Regulation 4(1)(a). Regulation 4(5) allows completion afterwards only where interrupting business would not be sufficiently urgent or necessary and there is little interim risk.
- Documents the law names
- None
The Regulations describe a standard - true identity, conclusive evidence, independent documentation from a reliable source - and leave the list to the institution. Any published checklist is a bank's policy.
- Penalty on the institution for not having procedures
- $50,000, plus $250 a day
Regulation 4(2)(e) writes the figures in words - fifty thousand dollars, and two hundred and fifty dollars for each day a continuing contravention lasts. The Regulations do not name the currency.
- Beneficial ownership
- Identified for any non-individual customer
Regulation 4(2)(c) requires the ownership and control structure to be understood and the beneficial owners or controllers identified, which is why opening an account for a company takes longer than for a person.
Requirements
- Identification before the relationship starts: the regulation puts the procedures before account opening, not after
- Evidence capable of verifying you are the same person as the customer being identified, which satisfies the institution, and which is supported by independent documentation from a reliable source
- Where you act for someone else, identification of that third party too, and of its beneficial owners where it is not an individual
- An explanation of the purpose and intended nature of the relationship
- Ongoing scrutiny of transactions against what the bank knows of you, with records kept up to date
In detail
The law sets a standard, the bank sets the list
A reader arriving from a country where the central bank publishes the documents a branch may ask for will find nothing of the kind here. The Anti-Money Laundering Regulations set an outcome - establish true identity, obtain evidence that is conclusive to the institution and supported by independent documentation from a reliable source - and leave every institution to decide what satisfies it. That is why requirements vary between banks in the same town, why a reference from your existing bank is so often asked for, and why nothing published by a bank can be read as a statement of what the law requires. The regulation also explains the timing: identification comes before the relationship, so an account is not opened and then documented.
Why a newcomer's file is thicker here than elsewhere
Saint Kitts and Nevis is a jurisdiction whose financial sector is scrutinised internationally and whose citizenship programme makes source of funds a live question. Regulation 4(2)(b) requires the institution to determine whether the customer is acting for a third party and, if so, to identify that party and its beneficial owners. Regulation 4(2)(d) requires information on the purpose and intended nature of the relationship. Regulation 4(3) requires continuing scrutiny of transactions against what the bank knows of the customer. A new arrival with no local employment history, foreign income and no transaction record is, in the terms of these regulations, a customer about whom the bank knows very little - which is a matter of risk assessment rather than of suspicion.
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«(a) identification procedures before the establishment of a business relationship or before carrying out a one-off transaction;
(b) on-going identification procedures during a business relationship;»A "relevant person" is the regulated institution. Paragraph (c) adds procedures where the institution suspects money laundering or doubts documents it already holds, which is the basis of a mid-relationship request for papers.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«(a) establishing the true identity of that person, including that person’s name and legal status and where that person is not an individual, verifying the legal status of the person; and»About this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«(iii) relying on evidence that is supported by independent documentation that is derived from a reliable source.»This is the clause that turns into a demand for a bank reference from your existing institution: a reference is independent documentation from a reliable source in a way that your own statement is not.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«may be completed as soon as reasonably practicable after the establishment of a business relationship if—
(a) it is not sufficiently urgent or necessary to interrupt the normal conduct of business; and
(b) there is, in the interim, little risk of money laundering occurring.»Both limbs have to be satisfied. This is the only route to an account opened on incomplete documentation, and it is the institution's judgement rather than the customer's.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«obtaining information on the purpose and intended nature of the business relationship or one-off transaction;»About this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«it commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine of fifty thousand dollars and if after conviction, the contravention of the offence continues, to a further fine of two hundred and fifty dollars for each day that the offence continues.»About this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«scrutinising transactions undertaken throughout the course of that relationship to ensure that the transactions being conducted are consistent with the relevant person’s knowledge of the customer, including the customer’s business and risk profile; and»About this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The Banking Act, Cap. 21.01, is published by the Law Commission but our reading of it returned a bot-protection page rather than the statute, so nothing on this record is sourced to it. Whatever the Banking Act says about account opening is unread, and the account-opening standard quoted here is the anti-money-laundering one.
The Regulations state their penalties in dollars without naming the currency, in common with most of the older legislation in this country. Nothing is converted here.
A bank's published list of required documents is a fact about that bank. It is primary for the bank's own terms and tells you nothing about what another institution, or the law, requires.
Regulation 5 of the same Regulations requires enhanced customer due diligence in some situations and regulation 6 permits reduced due diligence for low-risk ones; neither was read in enough detail to be stated here.
- consolidatesProceeds of Crime Act, Cap. 4.28, and subsidiary legislation, Revised Edition showing the law as at 31 December 2020
Law Commission of Saint Christopher and Nevis · consolidated to 2020-12-31
About this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source