Someone told me today that resident aliens are not allowed to have interest bearing DDA accounts. Would someone please clarify this for me? Also, we have a business we're dealing with that is expanding and would have business'es with many ports. With this we would have the opportunity for many many new accounts. Sounds wonderfull except I'm skeptable because we're being asked to send sig. card's outside of the bank to open all these proposed new accounts. Some proposed new accounts are not US Citizens. The first thing that comes to mind are all the new rules etc. we have to abide by, especially after the 9/11 incident. Any thoughts?

You heard that resident aliens are not permitted interest-bearing accounts, right? I recommend you challenge your source. If it's your bank's policy, OK. But I am not aware of any law or regulation that prohibits it.

Lesson 1: When someone tells you something new, challenge the source if you're unsure.

As to the new accounts opportunities -- you are right to be skeptical when accounts might be opened for persons or businesses with whom/which you are not familiar. You need to appraise your abilities to know these customers, and weigh that in your decision about pursuing this business. This, by the way, is nothing new. It's common sense banking. But it has admittedly become more a more visible topic lately.

Identifying aliens properly on our core processing system can sometimes be tricky. One of the issues we try to keep a close check on is our Canadian residents. Canadian residents are subject to 1042-S reporting, so you have to make sure they are being properly identified for year-end reporting. We use a tax ID type code to generate our 1042-S reporting, but sometimes our folks think the country code field takes care of everything. And we have to remember to document residency as well as citizenship. (I could be a citizen of France, a resident of Canada, but working in the U.S.) Tricky stuff!