Hi,
based on What are the best foreigner friendly banks in Taiwan in 2020? I am wondering how common it is for (foreigners) in Taiwan to have more than one bank account.
Added a small poll out of curiosity:
How many accounts (with different banks!) in Taiwan do you have (not counting overseas accounts)?
And why?
0 voters
I am thinking of trying to open 1-3 and just see which one I like most.
Any downside to that approach?
Open a Chung Hwa Postal account.
Open a “New” bank account (new banks are those that formed after the government allowed private banks to form in early 1990s. Like Chinatrust, Taishin, Sinopac, Fubon, etc.).
Open a government-held bank account (Chunghua, Huanan, Bank of Taiwan, etc.).
Do all those 3, and you’ll be like most Taiwanese.
Post Office - Scholarship was received there (Abandoned).
Taipei Fubon - First “real bank account” and later on opened a CAD account.
Huanan - First and second job payed through it. (Abandoned).
E. Sun - For PayPal use, never got it to work (Abandoned).
Changhwa - Current job pays through it.
Standard Chartered - More foreign friendly online banking and app.
CTBC - receive company stocks there, they ask u to open a regular bank account to cash the stocks.
Mega - Got a secured credit card to build up some kind of credit history (other banks did not want to issue me a card back then)
HSBC - global transfers
Post office - wife thought it was a good idea
Yes it’s common, because Taiwanese employers only tend to deposit their employees’ salaries into accounts at one bank. So if you get a new job, you may have to open a new bank account.
I have 4, so far.
Every time I change jobs I have to open a new account…
For some reason, none of the companies I’ve worked for used the same bank 
Just one-- the one my employer set up for me the day I arried. Never had a reason to use another one.
Every time I change jobs, my new employer requires me to open an account at the bank that they have their business account at. So I have a ton of accounts with <1000NT in them. One day, I’ll close them.
I loath that habit of following employers banks. Really gets me, i refuse. Pay my account or pay cash.
But ya, still have multiple banks. Mostly for international reasons. opened an E.sun account just for paypal then paypal cut out taiwan domestic sales…if loans are in your future, they like a history with their bank.
Same story as most posters here. New job = new bank account.
I don’t mind the multiple accounts as if I need to hit the ATM for cash, I have multiple options. If the ATM so happens to be one of the banks I have, I save on transaction fees.
It is a bit annoying to keep track of funds in so many accounts though.