If you have an account with TD Ameritrade Singapore, you might have received email from them asking you to update IRS Form W-8BEN, both you and co-owner (if you have) of the account. 

If TD Ameritrade Singapore does not receive updated info by December 6, 2019, your account will be subject to trading restrictions and U.S. federal backup withholding. Your account will be restricted to closing transactions only, and you will not be able to open new positions. In addition, TD will convert your Foreign account to a U.S. Taxpayer account after the end of this year. TD's clearing firm will also be required by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to withhold 24% of all interest, dividends, proceeds from options transactions, and sales proceeds until they receive the necessary documentation.

Here, I put up a sample W-8BEN and how to fill up this form.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to fill up application form to apply for TD Ameritrade trading account with sample data. This tutorial is based on overseas application.

The data in the form are just samples and you will need to enter your own data accurately. The selections from tdameritrade.com.sg webpages could be changed from time to time. I can not be held responsible if you fail to get a live account from TD Ameritrade.

Thee are a lot of data to enter. It may take up 30 minutes or one hour to complete the application. So make sure you don't get interrupted during application process.

In this article, I will provide an example how you can transfer fund to your new TD Ameritrade account via wire transfer from overseas to US. Beware that the information is accurate at the time of writing of this article. You should always refer to the information provided to you by TD Ameritrade before actual fund transfer.

You can wire your money via Citibank or CIMB Bank if you are located in Malaysia.

Please be aware that your fund transfer may be rejected even it is a small error in your form. The fund returned to you will be lesser than you sent initially after currency conversion both ways as well as processing charges from both US and your bank. So always double check your information before transfer your money.

If you like to trade US stocks, options or futures, one of the best platform you can use is TD Ameritrade. For users from Asia, you can register with TD Ameritrade Singapore.

TD Ameritrade is a company of over 40 years and with more than 100 branches. Some brokerage companies impose minimum amount of deposit to open an account but not TD Ameritrade. There is no maintenance fees, yearly or monthly fees or platform fees for TD Ameritrade. You can start using the tools, monitoring stock prices, trading in simulation mode etc even before funding your account.

TD Ameritrade is a member of FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) and SIPC (Securities Investor Protection Corporation). FINRA's mission is to safeguard the investing public against fraud and bad practices. SIPC protects against the loss of cash and securities – such as stocks and bonds – held by a customer at a financially-troubled SIPC-member brokerage firm. The limit of SIPC protection is $500,000, which includes a $250,000 limit for cash.

TD Ameritrade is a mature platform with large community. Trading can be done from desktop and mobile (Anfroid and iOS). There are very powerful charting features on this platform. You can also install Thinkscript to enhance your analysis.