that’s unfortunately quite understandable though. Short term stays not for work (so with work permit or open work rights and actual employment) can be very tough to justify from a credit perspective.
Amex unfortunately r not widely accepted here, safest bets r western style restaurants (KFC and Maccas both accept amex amazingly) or in large shopping malls.
I would suggest to aim at a locally issued debit card if u still require a widely accepted local payment card. The post office visa debit card is pretty good and gives decent cashback and can have either Ipass or easycard embedded functions too.
If u want a Line pay compatible debit card to accrue also some line points, the only one is CTBC one.
Yeah I have a debit card from Chunghwa Post but I need a credit card to pay for some stuff in advance (i. e. flights).
EDIT: And I’m also thinking of getting a VISA credit card from my home country since just like what you said, AmEx isn’t widely accepted here. For one, it’s not accepted by FET.
Yup same would happen in other countries. My lad went to Australia to study. His is an Australian citizen, he had A$50k in his bank account. Applied for credit card, rejected as no employment income. Summer time he took a full time job got his credit card.
I’m in the middle of trying to apply for a credit card with Huanan bank, as advertised on their website for gold card holders, and it isn’t going well lol.
I’ve been in here for over an hour now, at one of their purported bilingual branches. Apparently that means taking me over to the one guy who speaks decent English (the wealth management guy), who’s actually pretty alright but hadn’t seen the web page before and didn’t know anything about the scheme. He asked me several times how I’d heard about it and needed me to provide the link and show him the application form, and he also wanted to hear about the four banks claiming to provide services to gold card holders (@fifieldt).
He told me that headquarters said I’d need a guarantor because I’m a foreigner. I responded that I’m not providing one, that it’s against article 62 of the Immigration Act and article 7 of the Financial Consumer Protection Act (thanks @Mataiou!), and will be complaining to the FSC if they insist on it, so him and his colleague have spent the last 45 minutes calling people about that.
Apparently I’m the first gold card holder to apply for a credit card under this scheme at this branch, and this is the first time he’s heard that foreigners can get a credit card without a guarantor.
It’s 4:10 p.m., and we haven’t even gotten into the disagreement that’ll happen when they try to get me to misdeclare my tax residency yet (also need to open a regular bank account to get the credit card, according to the application form).
Yes, I told him that a few of us have been complaining to the FSC recently about this stuff, and we had a bit of a chat about how difficult or easy it was to get credit cards in other countries.
Now I’ve moved over to the account opening stage - last customer in the branch! - so it seems something got sorted. There’s 4 new people dealing with the account opening for me, and the main guy is someone who normally works upstairs who they dragged down to deal with the foreigner.
not surprised at all that they don’t know at the branch. I would have just downloaded the form from the website and applied via post, they would process it at the central office where they should theoretically know.
I thought about doing that too, but the application form on the site is listed as “for viewing only”, and I figured a visit to a branch would be essential at some point in any case (at least for the necessary opening of the bank account). The customer service told me to visit the branch when I called a few days ago too.
Well that was an experience! I just left the bank now at 5:55 p.m., after arriving around 2:45 p.m. Latest I’ve ever stayed in a Taiwanese bank, and the longest I’ve ever been in one. Most of the employees had already gone home. I’m glad I brought a flask of coffee, and I’m really glad I don’t still smoke because there’s no way I’d have had the patience otherwise.
The credit card application has now gone off to be processed without a guarantor, and my tax residency is listed solely as Taiwan (which took a lot of discussion to accomplish and required me to sign a different form only in Chinese).
The young guy dragged from upstairs to deal with me was pretty friendly and understanding though, and he was very patient in explaining what I was saying about tax residency and CRS rules to his colleagues (who also spent ages on the phone to other departments). It also helped that I’d had the foresight to bring the one tax withholding statement I’ve received from Richart that has my tax residency listed as “ZZ” rather than “GB”.
Yeah, I’m not sure for now tbh. It was definitely a bit frustrating at times, but after I mentioned the FSC to the first guy him and the rest of the staff in the branch were at least cooperative and friendly and tried to deal with it as best they could, including spending ages on the phone trying to find a solution with whichever higher-up department(s) they were talking to… and I got what I wanted in the end on both counts. I think it was really just a situation (or at least an annoying customer who wasn’t being fobbed off) they hadn’t encountered before and nobody knew how to proceed.
So I think I’ll first give them the opportunity to process it and see what they come back with… then complain to the FSC if they start asking for a guarantor again or causing other difficulties.
There were a couple of slightly odd bits. The first guy (the wealth management one) asked me why I wanted a credit card with Huanan when I already had one with Mega Bank, as though it was strange to have more than one. I asked him how many credit cards he had, expecting it to be multiple, but he said he only had one with Huanan (maybe a bank employee isn’t the best example). I was getting a bit bored at that point anyway, so I just said I was curious how their bank dealt with foreigners/gold card holders and how easy or difficult the process was (which is basically the truth, I’m not too bothered about the card itself).
The younger guy from upstairs also initially had a hard time understanding why I still had a British passport when I’m not resident there. He seemed to think I’d lose my passport if I left the country and the fact I had a passport meant I was “still a resident even if I’m not a citizen”. It was quite strange.
