HSBC delays opening an account (3+ weeks), citing weird reason

henm2

If the only link is the place of birth then HSBC should not have caught you in their enhanced know your customer procedures.
If however you still hold a passport from an affected country, or have transactions occasionally in from or out to that country or hold bank accounts, investments, property or other assets in that country then you will be affected by their relatively new procedures.
I don't believe Singapore is on their list of riskier countries (AML wise) but a lot of the far east is including Singapore's neighbours Malaysia.
I also hear that the delay for approvals from HSBC to open accounts for new to HSBC customers under this procedure has now gone up to 8 weeks. This is due to a large backlog of applications.

I know it is very frustrating and I wish HSBC would put more resources into processing such applications quicker but once the checks are done and all is well you should have no further hassle when opening additional accounts or making international payments.