Can't open a saving's account in Taiwan

Business Money
1

I already have a Checking Account and a US Dollar Account with Chinatrust Bank.

Today I decided since I have a decent amount saved up I should open a Saving’s Account.

For the record I have already 3 million Taiwan Dollars in a Checking Account after living & working in Taiwan for many years. I make over 200k per month & also a Gold Card. So I was very surprised when I said that they couldn’t open an account for me.

First the security guard was quite rude and they almost didn’t let me in the bank. I finally got to talk to a person at the desk and they said foreigner’s are limited to one checking account per person and aren’t allowed to have saving’s accounts.

Is this actually true or do they just not want to do the paperwork. For reference I speak near-native Mandarin so there was no language barrier.

2

Time to try another bank.

There really aren’t chequing and savings accounts here so I dont even know what you’re doing.

3 Likes
3

So just go to HSBC and open a premier account.

4

From my experience, in Taiwan one’s “checking” account also doubles as a savings account and will earn around 0.5% on the NT$ balance. If you want more, you need to open a time deposit account and lock away the money anywhere from 1 month to several years.

Most banks should allow an unlimited number of time deposit accounts and allow to use the online banking for opening one (both E.SUN and Cathay do) and you can choose if you want to auto-renew automatically or not. If you terminate early, you’ll have to pay an interest penalty.

I keep most of my NT$ savings in 1-month-time deposits which earn around 1.2% and are still very flexible.

5

Oh maybe that’s where the confusion was I was trying to open this kind of thing but they maybe thought I just wanted a regular savings account.

6

I just checked: The Chinese word they use in E.SUN’s online banking is 定存. In English, they call them “Time Deposit”.

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7

Thanks! I just checked in my bank and found it.

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