US Securities Services

The Service is provided via Business e-Banking to corporate customers who satisfy all the below:

• Non-US, non-Canada and non- Republic of Korea entity , and not an entity with registered, business  or correspondence address in US, Canada or Korea; and
• Able to provide a valid identification document such as Certification of Incorporation, Business Registration Certificate or Memorandum and Articles of Association; and
• Maintain a valid US Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Form W-8BEN-E with the Bank, with Chapter 3 Status (entity type) being Corporation; and
• Accept the Important Notes and Agreement for US market information display services.
• Customers have an Integrated Business Solutions (“IBS”) Account with the Securities Account (account suffix 085) under it activated.

Note(s):

• If your Securities Account is a Standalone Securities Account, you have to open a new IBS Account and activate the Securities Account under it in order to use the Service.
• You will also have to maintain sufficient fund in your USD Savings Account under the IBS Account before you start to place orders.

You can download US Securities Trading Service - Important Notes and Agreement for US market information display services and the US Internal Revenue Service W-Series Forms. Please read the information carefully and select the W-Series Forms that is appropriate to you. If you are unsure, you should seek advice from a tax advisor. Hang Seng cannot provide tax advice. Completed forms could be returned to your relationship manager or any of our Business Banking Centres.

You can only trade US Securities online via Business e-Banking. 

You can trade Common Stocks (excluding warrants), Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and American Depository Receipts (ADRs) traded on NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX and NYSE ARCA, including securities listed in US as ADRs. However, we do not accept trading / transfer in of low priced securities, and we do not provide IPO service for US securities.

Note: Any US securities with unit price below USD1 may be treated as Low Priced Securities (“LPS”) by the Bank. The list of LPS will be determined by the Bank in its sole discretion and which may change from time to time. In case a US security becomes a LPS, the customer may need to take appropriate action, including but not limited to transfer out, sell or relinquish its right in those securities. The Bank will no longer offer any other services in relation to those securities, including but not limited to trading, settlement service and corporate actions etc. services.

You can place, amend or cancel (a) limit order anytime, or (b) market order during US trading hours, via Business e-Banking.

For multiple unexecuted orders captured before the market closes, we can only accept one amendment or cancellation instruction during non-trading hours. We will process your request in the next US trading session around 08:00 U.S. ET. Before we process your amendment or cancellation request, subsequent amendment and cancellation on related order cannot be accepted.

For limit order, you can specify an order expiry date from the list of dates provided under “Good Till”. You may select up to 3 calendar days. Market order is a day order and it will expire at the end of US trading hours on order capture date.

After you have entered and confirmed the order/ instruction details, a reference number will be shown on the top of completion page. This only represents acknowledgement of receipt of your order/ instruction by the Bank.

There is no guarantee that your order will be executed or executed in a timely manner in the market. The Bank will try its best to process your order but it may not be performed due to fluctuations in stock price, insufficient market liquidity, system failure or any other event beyond the control of the Bank.

You can use the “Order status” enquiry function to check the order status via Business e-Banking. Once your order is executed, execution results will be sent to you by means of an email sent to “Important Mails” in Business e-Banking and Primary User’s mobile phone number on our record via SMS if you have also enrolled to our e-Alert Services for Securities Order Notification. 

Your order will be transmitted to the broker designated by our Bank from time to time for order execution. Under certain circumstances, including but not limited to corporate events like stock split/merge, stock suspension, exceeding acceptable price variance, low priced securities, your tax status change, or whenever the relevant broker determines that it is appropriate and in the interest of a fair and orderly market to protect investors and comply with applicable local regulation/exchange trading rules/market requirements as appropriate, the broker may not proceed to execute your order in the exchange without prior notice to you.

If order is rejected by broker or exchange, the order status will become “unexecuted”. Please remember to check the latest order status through the “Order status” screen after you have placed a new order, an amendment or a cancellation instruction.

The weighted average execution price of all the same stock transactions on the trading day is shown on the contract note, while the execution price and quantity of individual trade is shown in Business e-Banking.

During the order placement process, the hold amount is calculated as follows for Market Order:

During continuous trading:

Hold amount = Limit up price^* x your specified quantity

During trading halt: 

Hold amount = Maximum (Previous closing or Last trade price before trading halt) x your specified quantity x 115%

^* “Limit up price” is part of the Limit Up-Limit Down (LULD) mechanism which is intended to prevent trades in US National Market System (NMS) securities from occurring outside of specified price bands. The bands would be set at a percentage level (see further details below) above and below the average reference price of the security over the immediately preceding five-minute period.

Tier 1 refers to securities that are S&P 500 constituent stock, Russell 1000 Index constituent stock and selected exchange-traded products. Tier 2 refers to all other securities.

Example for illustrative purpose only:

The current average reference price of an S&P 500 constituent stock is USD 50.00 during market hours. If you want to place a market order of 10 shares of this stock, the hold amount for the order will be USD 525.00 (Limit up price is USD 50.00 x 105% = USD 52.50) and you should ensure that you have sufficient funds in your settlement account to settle the order after it is executed.

Market orders will be executed at the price prevailing at the time of execution, which may largely deviate from the quoted price at the time of order placing.

If the funding in your settlement account is insufficient to settle a buy order due to price volatility, we may in its absolute discretion execute the buy order in whole or in part and/or deduct the relevant funds from your other accounts (including but not limited to HKD account). You must settle any resulting overdraft before settlement on T+1.

The Bank reserves the right to sell the related securities to set-off the overdraft without prior notice to the customers.

Yes. The receivable funds from a sale transaction executed on day T may be used to buy another stock before settlement, and the receivable scrip from a buy transaction executed on day T may be sold before settlement.

Settlement cycle of the US securities markets is usually 1 business day after order execution (T+1). For buy orders, debit of the purchase amount from your account and deposit of the purchased securities will take place 1 business day after trade execution day. For sell orders, sales proceeds will be credited to your account 1 business day after sale execution day.

Trading service will be provided on Hong Kong holidays if it is a U.S. trade day. If the settlement date of previous buy / sell trade falls on Hong Kong holidays, customer can still be able to sell respective securities / buy with respective funds.

However, the actual fund / securities settlement will be deferred to the next Hong Kong working day (excluding Saturday). Contract Note will also be prepared and sent to customers on the next Hong Kong working day (excluding Saturday).

You can access a wide range of US market information via  Business e-Banking, including real-time stock quotes, the latest US market news, top movers and major U.S. indices. Some market information is sourced from NASDAQ only and may not include other exchanges, except closing price and information provided by Refinitiv. Please note that such market information and data is for your information and reference purposes only, you are reminded to refer to the disclaimer in  Business e-Banking.

The brokerage fee is calculated based on the executed quantity or transaction amount of an order on individual trade day.