FATCA stands for the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It is a new piece of legislation to help counter tax evasion in the US. The purpose of FATCA is to encourage better tax compliance by preventing US persons from using banks and other financial organizations to avoid US taxation on their income and assets.

Banks and other financial institutions are required to report information on financial accounts held directly or indirectly by US persons on an annual basis, in compliance with the agreement signed on 29/04/2015 between the state of Kuwait and USA.

ABK is committed to being fully FATCA compliant in all countries where we operate. We will therefore be reviewing our existing customer base to confirm the FATCA statuses of our customers and where necessary we may have to contact our customers for further information and documentation.

FATCA legislation impacts both individuals and business customers who hold an account with ABK.

No. If an individual’s account holds any of the following criteria, ABK may request further information or documentation to determine if you are a US person under FATCA:

• US Nationality, or US tax resident including permanent resident or Green Card Status
• Born in the USA • Address or c/o address is a US address
• Registered power of attorney in favor of a US person
• Standing instruction to transfer funds to a US account
• US telephone number captured as a contact number
• “Hold Mail” address as the only address.

ABK will ask you to fill some forms and provide some supporting documents when required at time of opening the account or when updating your information.

FATCA does not replace the existing US tax regimes, it may however add additional requirements and complexity to the existing US tax rules you may already follow. We recommend you contact a professional tax advisor to discuss your personal tax situation.

A joint account which has one US owner is treated as a US account and therefore the entire account is subject to the FATCA legislation.

FATCA is an ongoing process. If your account information changed, you are required to provide updated information or documentation so that we are able to update your account classification under FATCA.

The account information communicated to the tax authority will include, but is not limited to: name, address, US taxpayer identification number, account number, account balance, details of certain amounts deposited in these accounts and information about controlling US owners for some entities.

US taxpayer identification number is the social security number (SSN) for individuals and the employer identification number (EIN) for entities.

All American citizens are eligible for a social security number (SSN). In case you didn’t get your social security number (SSN) for any reason, please head to the US embassy in the country where you are resident to apply for the social security number (SSN).

As per regulations, ABK will not be able to start or continue the relationship with customers who fail to provide the required information / forms.

As per decree law No(6) for 2024, and it’s executive regulations, A fine of no less than ten thousand Kuwaiti Dinars and no more than twenty thousand Kuwaiti Dinars shall be imposed on the account holder or the controlling person (for entities) who completes the self-certification form with incorrect data. please consult your tax, legal and / or professional advisor.

In order to confirm your Non-US status, please provide us a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CoLoN).

ABK staff will be happy to help explaining the forms and explaining the different classification under FATCA. However, ABK is not allowed to provide tax advisory, so we can’t help you selecting a specific classification. Please consult your tax, legal and / or professional advisor if you are not sure about your classification under FATCA.

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) is information-gathering and reporting requirement for financial institutions in participating countries, to help fight against tax evasion and protect the integrity of tax systems. Kuwait has signed the CRS agreement with (OECD) Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development on August 19th, 2016 in Paris.

The CRS seeks to establish the tax residency of customers. Under the CRS, financial institutions are required to identify customers who appear to be tax resident outside of the country where they hold their accounts and products, and report certain information to our local tax authority. They may then share that information with the tax authority where you are tax resident.

Under the CRS, tax authorities require financial institutions such as ABK to collect and report certain information relating to their customers’ tax statuses. If you open a new bank account, invest in new financial products or change your circumstances in some way, we will ask you to certify a number of details about yourself. This process is called “self-certification” and we are required to collect this information under the CRS.

All financial institutions – that includes banks, insurers and asset management businesses – in participating countries are required to be compliant with the CRS.

In line with the CRS requirements, we will be asking you for your:

• Name
• Address
• Place of birth* (for Individual and Controlling Persons)
• Date of birth*(for Individual and Controlling Persons)
• Country(ies) of tax residence
• Taxpayer identification number(s)*
• Place of registration/incorporation (for Entities)
• Entity Type (for Entities)
• Controlling Person Type for certain Entity Types (for Controlling Persons) *this does not apply in all participating countries and is subject to local law requirements.

Your tax residency is the country where you are resident/registered for tax purposes. Each country has its own rules for defining tax residence. For more information on tax residence, please consult your tax, legal and / or professional advisor.

Even if you have already provided information under the United States government’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), you may still need to provide additional information for the CRS as these are different regulations with different requirements. FATCA is US Law and requires financial institutions to identify US Persons and report in line with local FATCA regulations, based on citizenship. The CRS requires financial institutions to identify the tax residency of all our customers and in most cases report information on customers who are tax resident outside of the country where they hold their accounts.

Under the CRS, we are legally required to establish the tax residency status of all our customers, even if you are tax resident in the same country as where you hold your account.

Once we have a valid self-certification on file, you will only be asked to complete another when you update certain information on your account or we believe your reportable status may have changed.

ABK is required to report your tax details under the legal obligations introduced by countries participating in the CRS.

Customer information is protected by a strict code of secrecy and security which all members of the ABK Group, their staff and third parties are subject to.

We are required by law to verify the details you have provided as part of your self-certification. We might ask you for a copy of your passport to verify your identity or for some other evidence of your tax residency declared in your self-certification.

The information reported to tax authorities will have been provided in the self-certification form, and details about the accounts and products you have with us, including: • The balance or value • The total amounts of interest or payments credited

For a list of countries participating in the CRS, alongside the dates that they will start exchanging information, please see the OECD CRS portal: http://www.oecd.org/tax/automatic-exchange/crs-implementation-and-assistance/crs-by-jurisdiction/

For new customers, CRS is a mandatory requirement of our account opening procedure. In case you do not want to provide the required information then we will not be able to go ahead with your request for banking with ABK.

As per decree law No(6) for 2024, and it’s executive regulations, A fine of no less than ten thousand Kuwaiti Dinars and no more than twenty thousand Kuwaiti Dinars shall be imposed on the account holder or the controlling person (for entities) who completes the self-certification form with incorrect data. please consult your tax, legal and / or professional advisor.

The PoA holder can provide the certification on behalf of the account holder. However, the CRS self-certification form will be required for the account holder and the PoA holder as well.

The CRS self-certification form will be required for the minor account holder and the guardian as well.

Yes. Each joint account holder will need to provide a separate CRS self-certification form.

Yes. It is clearly stated in the certification that the customer will advise ABK about the change of his tax residency status or any other information provided in the form within 30 days and will provide an updated self-certification within 90 days.

Yes, separate CRS self-certification forms should be submitted separately for each branch.