International tax regulations require the collection and reporting of certain information regarding each accountholder’s status.

In March 2016, the global version of the US’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), known as the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), came into effect in South Africa. FATCA and CRS affect individuals, entities, and financial institutions globally.

CRS is the global standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information. It applies to all accounts held by individuals who have tax obligations or tax residencies outside South Africa—not only those accountholders who are US citizens, which is what FATCA addresses.

CRS aims to combat tax evasion and makes it compulsory for financial institutions (such as HBZ Bank) to collect certain required information on financial accounts and report this to the South African Revenue Service (SARS).

These requirements apply to clients (individuals and entities) who are US citizens, US nationals, or US tax residents; who have tax obligations, tax liabilities, or tax residencies outside South Africa; or who have US or other foreign details recorded on our systems.

The details that will be reported to SARS include:

• Citizenship
• Physical/Residential addresses
• Place of birth
• Postal address
• Controlling persons and their relationship to the company
• Power of attorney
• Phone numbers
• Care-of address

Additionally, we will report the following information to SARS:

• Bank accounts
• Balances and payments into/out of such accounts
• Type of income received
• Nature or classification of the company
• Tax residencies and tax identification numbers

SARS will exchange the information with other relevant global tax authorities, who will, in turn, share information with SARS regarding South African tax residents holding financial accounts outside South Africa. This could result in additional investigations by SARS.

If you do not have another citizenship or nationality resulting in tax obligations outside South Africa, FATCA and CRS will have minimal impact on you, other than the requirement to provide us with additional information confirming that you do not have tax obligations, tax liabilities, or tax residencies outside South Africa.

Please contact your tax adviser if you have any questions or uncertainties about your tax obligations. You can also obtain more information from the SARS website. If you do not want to click on the link, type the following address in your browser: http://www.sars.gov.za/clientsegments/businesses/mod3rdparty/aeoi/Pages/default.aspx.

HBZ Bank may contact you in due course to obtain or update the tax-related information we have on record for you.