No-resident account

No it is not.

In order to open a bank account in Malaysia you need to be resident. If you have the time and patience to apply for MM2H then you are very welcome to open an account in Malaysia. Admittedly, I managed to persuade someone at Maybank to open an account for me before I had MM2H but that was more than 12 years ago, and banks are more strict these days especially with regards to any activities that might be considered as money laundering.

The one possibility that I can think of would have been to have opened an HSBC Premier account in Lebanon which would have entitled you to open HSBC accounts all over the world with the exception of Indonesia and Taiwan, but I believe Blom Bank in Lebanon acquired HSBC Lebanon, so if HSBC no longer exists there then it could be a problem. The other problem with HSBC is that they are strongly anti money laundering and will close or block an account of anyone suspected of depositing money without paying tax, which might fit your position.

If you were to apply for MM2H which is a kind of retirement visa but available to people of any age, you need to have a certain amount of regular monthly income, place funds in a fixed deposit account and have medical check up etc. Once you had the MM2H confirmed you can open an account with almost any bank in Malaysia, although I would recommended opening with a local bank.

In the meantime, I guess you can still accumulate funds in PayPal or whichever online system you use until you can open an account somewhere else.

Opening a bank account is tedious in Malaysia. Even though I am a Malaysian, I need to have a job in order to open a bank account as they would call the employer to verify the employee's identity.

Or you can register your e-commerce business in Malaysia as a private limited company, and try getting a business bank account. The banks might require you to deposit a sum of money the moment you open the bank account, but the T&C varies according to respective bank.

Thanks for your responses.
If I become resident using MM2H and I open a bank account, must I stay in Malysia or can I come just one month per year?

As far as I know, there is no limit to how much time you need to stay in Malaysia. MM2H is Malaysia My Second Home, meaning people from other countries can treat Malaysia as a second home. As far as I know you can be out of the country for as long as you want.

The other issue is that you should really open a business account if you are just transferring funds from PayPal to a bank. But probably many of the local banks might not mind. Foreign banks such as HSBC would freeze your accounts if you were to do such a thing. So you need to be certain that the local bank you choose will not keep asking you where the money is coming from and request you to send them information such as tax returns etc. Even Malaysian banks are supposedly against money laundering but the foreign banks are the worst.

Another issue is that I don't think that it is possible to transfer funds out of Malaysian banks via TransferWise. It can be done from other countries in Asia but I never managed it from Malaysia.

Perhaps consider what Ms. Yeoh is suggesting and see what the costs are to do that. Also, for MM2H you need to deposit quite a large sum of money into a fixed deposit. You can only get that money back when you end your MM2H or some of it for medical reasons etc.

I am going to read details about MM2H and come back to you for more information if necessary.

Thanks a lot for your help. I was not aware about this program.

OK no worries. You can also make the application through an official Agent, but probably you'd need to be in Malaysia with the relevant documents to give to the agent. They agents of course charge a fee for doing it.

The minimum cost of opening a private limited company in Malaysia is around MYR3,000 on the first year. There will be a compulsory monthly retainer fee to the company secretary as well.

I have no knowledge on MM2H but do compare each option to decide which one suits your situation best. Good luck!

Opening a private limited company in Malaysia seems the way to go if it  is that cheap. MM2H requires a very big amount of money to be deposited in an FD, not sure if it is RM500k or has it dropped down a bit?

Do you mean that opening a company in Malaysia will enable me to have a bank account even if I am not resident in Malaysia?

I mean a personal bank account. Don't forget that this is my goal.