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by Strong Eagle » Tue, 04 Oct 2016 1:47 am
It's legal to have non-resident directors as signatories, and it is my understanding that like a resident director, the NR director must be present in Singapore to sign the account cards in front of a bank officer.
As to whether the bank _will_ agree to a non-resident director, that is another question entirely. Bear in mind that I opened my first commercial account in 2004 and it has been nearly four years since I have actively engaged in business in Singapore.
After I left Singapore, I remained a non-resident director for my company for about 3 years while I wound everything down. The bank was aware of my address change, filed both with the bank and the ACRA. I was the only signatory to the account.
These days I think it is much more difficult to allow a NR director to have signatory authority. It all comes down to the banking relationship. If you've been with the bank for years, have a stable business, and are adding an offshore director for the purposes of business expansion, then I don't think there would be an issue.
But, if the company is new, maybe has a rented local director, and also has a foreign bank account to which the NR director is a signatory, I could see why the red flags might go up... it's far too easy to setup a money laundering conduit.
Only thing to do is try and see what the bank's response is. I had the same situation in reverse in Thailand and Malaysia... I was a foreign director in those countries, and it was not easy to get a bank account that I could sign on in either country.