the best bank for foreigner

[Icon]

Icon, I was very soon going to open an account with Citi because of the good service of a local branch when I made inquiries, which was a lot different 3 years ago when I went to a different branch and they told me that they dont allow foreigners to apply for a bank account.

You mentioned that they provide deplorable service and high fees. Is this related to transfers of money from a foreign country only, or do they have a lot of traps to charge someone fees from?

I know Citibank in USA is known as a subprime lender, and before the crisis would give a credit card to anything that breathed.

One more time: Citibank here only has the name. It is not a branch of the one in the US. It is like Pizza Hut and other franchises, which started very nicely, follwing international employe practices, and then degenerated into a horrible mixmatch.

I know their charges for credit cards, general local bank transactions, and service in general leaves a lot to be desired, from local and foreign friends who have had to deal with them. Now, if you have found a good branch, do tell and identify, certainly there would be fortunate variations. Just inquire and compare charges, maybe it will be cost effective.

[dan2006]

Icon, I was very soon going to open an account with Citi because of the good service of a local branch when I made inquiries, which was a lot different 3 years ago when I went to a different branch and they told me that they dont allow foreigners to apply for a bank account.

You mentioned that they provide deplorable service and high fees. Is this related to transfers of money from a foreign country only, or do they have a lot of traps to charge someone fees from?

I know Citibank in USA is known as a subprime lender, and before the crisis would give a credit card to anything that breathed.

One more time: Citibank here only has the name. It is not a branch of the one in the US. It is like Pizza Hut and other franchises, which started very nicely, follwing international employe practices, and then degenerated into a horrible mixmatch.

I know their charges for credit cards, general local bank transactions, and service in general leaves a lot to be desired, from local and foreign friends who have had to deal with them. Now, if you have found a good branch, do tell and identify, certainly there would be fortunate variations. Just inquire and compare charges, maybe it will be cost effective.

Thanks. I know they are a franchise, but also know that their reputation precedes them in the USA, while although being different, would probably unfortunately trickle down to Taiwan.

I haven't opened the account yet so I will reserve praise for them if they can get me everything set up with no hassle like they promised. I am very much used to people promising me the moon, but just try and get it.

[ceeeeej]

I'm not biased towards or against Citi right now. I'm just working through this and providing the information for anyone that could use it. In the visa debit card thread, there was at least one person people mentioning Citi for people needing regular transfers between US and TW.

Here is some more information on Citi on these transfers. From just looking at the Citibank webpage here, https://online.citibank.com/US/JRS/pands/detail.do?ID=Inte%20Citi, it says:

Citibank® Global Transfers.
Need to get funds from New York to Turkey? This service lets you transfer money real-time from your Citibank account to other Citibank accounts in the U.S. or abroad.
What it Costs:
Incoming transfers free
Outgoing domestic transfers free
Outgoing international transfers, no transfer fee

They put an emphasis on "no transfer fee" for outgoing international transfers. My skepticism has led me to believe there is probably some fee here that they are not calling a transfer fee. So I called and they quoted a 2% conversion fee on transfers between Citibank accounts from TW to US but no transfer fee, just what I expected.

I've done some more research into the wire fees. After I called some banks I found the information that banks were quoting me when I called was pretty accurate to this website: (http://www.mybanktracker.com/bank-news/2012/02/13/wire-transfer-fees-banks/).

Using that data I did some calculations and posted them here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AnMsdbe40AtUdFBfZXdRS2dFZDZ6bGZnaEFtSVpKT1E&output=html
You can see that Citibank is the best option if you are transferring smaller amounts since the 2% works out in your favor. Inter-Citibank transfers are not as good when you start transferring much more per transfer. The funny thing is if you are transferring larger amounts of money from another TW bank to Citibank in the US, you pay less than Citibank(TW) to Citibank(US).

I'm looking into using Ally for US banking (absolutely no fees) and they use Wells Fargo as their intermediary, which would give me the $16 / wire transfer fee whenever I send money to my US account. Ally doesn't charge any incoming wire fees on top of this and there would only then be the TW bank fee plus the Wells Fargo fee.

Did I miss anything or get something horribly wrong or misunderstood? Let me know.

[Icon]

Ceeeej, you are quoting the wrong page. That is the Citibank US, not Citibank Taiwan, which, one more time, the only thing it has in common with the Citibank in US is the name. It doe snot share the same systmem nor can it do the transfer on teh same line nor can you access your Citibank US account with them. It is not even a full bank here, so that is why it charges more. If it was a 100% foreign bank, it wouldn't be able to have common customers, it would focus on corporate ones. You will see when you get here. When you come here, do your study on the charges from the local banks in situation.

[ceeeeej]

Understood. If I have problems with what I picked I'll figure it out when I get there. Thanks for the help.

[Icon]

No problem. Just don't hesitate to ask, we are here to help. Money annoyances are very annoying.

[Mucha Man]

I know the question has been asked before about opening an account before you get your arc, but what about if you want to leave taiwan and still have an account here after your arc expires?

[Abacus]

I know the question has been asked before about opening an account before you get your arc, but what about if you want to leave taiwan and still have an account here after your arc expires?

I've been meaning to go to my old bank and check on its status but I have an account where I left Taiwan and had my ARC canceled before coming back and getting a new ARC 6 mos later (and a new bank account). I've never really bothered since I pulled all but 400NT out.

[urodacus]

I know the question has been asked before about opening an account before you get your arc, but what about if you want to leave taiwan and still have an account here after your arc expires?

no problem, I have had a few active accounts for several years since leaving.

[dan2006]

I had one active account and it was still going as well.

Could be because I opened it with a record of ID paper with no expiry date on it.