If I can provide any assistance from the US side, please let me know. My brother worked in DC for a congressman last summer, so I might be able to dig up the names of people who might be able to help in some capacity.
I’ll be in Taiwan for a short visit at the end of the month, but probably won’t be around long enough to do anything meaningful.
This thread is long. Can I get a summary?
Am I right in understanding that the central bank or someone has passed a regulation that all foreigners credit cards (from all banks) will expire with their ARC cards?
Is that right?
At first I was thinking that this just meant the inconvenience of renewing your credit card (along with your driving licence) every 1-3 years.
But thinking about itmore, this also means that if you leave Taiwan (temporarily or permanently) you can’t keep your credit card. This is ridiculous. Damn, I still have my UK credit card from my 6 month stay there 7 years ago.
Brian
Correct Brian.
Mr Debtjdfskljflasdjf: We are not questioning the bank’s need to do risk analysis; we are questioning the assumptions they load their model with, and one of them I know for a fact is a prohibition on foreigners for certain banks. We need to look at that. I accept, too that we are higher risk. But all risk has a corresponding price, and some of us will be willing to pay for that. BTW, I have two Taiwanese credit cards without guarantors, so this is not a virgin market.
Loretta and Buddha: Yeah we’ll have to meet up sometime. I want to address the 1. No driving licence issue
2. No telephones issue
3. No mobiles issue
4. No ATM cards (mine expires in July and I won’t get another one because foreigners aren’t allowed to have VISA debit cards according to ChinaTrust 
)
5. The ridiculous law that foreigner’s credit cards must expire with their ARCs.
These complaints cover several ministries. Do we write one letter to CSB or someone big (Ma Yingjiu?), each write our own letters to Someone Big, or do we write to all the various ministries individually?
Yes. The Central Bank has issued a directive that orders banks to not issue credit cards and ATM cards with an expiration date after the cardholder’s ARC expires. The offending article is 15.1.2.
As Hexuan mentions before, this is not a law, but a regulation. Interestingly, the title of the regulation ‘gui1fan4’ is not a title authorized by Article 3 of the Central Standards Law. Also, the regulation does not mention what law authorizes the Central Bank to issue the order. My educated guess is that Central Bank would argue that Article 5 of the Foreign Currency Act authorizes the regulation:
掌理外匯業務機關辦理左列事項：
一 外匯調度及收支計畫之擬訂。
二 指定銀行辦理外匯業務，並督導之。
三 調節外匯供需，以維持有秩序之外匯市場。
四 民間對外匯出、匯入款項之審核。
五 民營事業國外借款經指定銀行之保證、管理及清償稽、催之監督。
六 外國貨幣、票據及有價證券之買賣。
七 外匯收支之核算、統計、分析及報告。
八 其他有關外匯業務事項。
The key items here are 2 and 8. Item two says that the Central Bank can 督導 ‘oversee and provide guidance for’ foreign exchange operations. The question is whether du1dao3 is strong enough for the Central Bank to limit access by foreigners to consumer credit in such a discriminatory and sweeping manner. I think there is room for doubt, and that is probably why the Central Bank is being so coy about where it get its legal authorization to issue the order and is using an odd name for the order.
Unfortunately, the Central Bank will probably fall back on Item 8, which gives it a blank check to regulate foreign exchange operations as it sees fit.
I think a smart lawyer might find a way to challenge this in the adminstrative courts, but it would take time and cost $$$.
Once again, the lack of a foreign residents association to deal with this kind of issue means that we will probably just have to grin and bear it.
Well it seems to me that the best option is not a legal challenge but letters to the right people (and perhaps media attention)pointing out their inconsistencies.
You wank on about wanting to make Taipei and international city, but then the government makes all these unnecessary regulations to make living here harder.
You talk about wanting to attract skilled professionals to work in Taiwan, but again you make things difficult for them.
The large numbers of Taiwanese living in the US, UK, NZ etc have no difficulty getting credit, but the small numbers of Westerners living in Taiwan have extreme difficulty.
Brian
When I made inquiries, I even suggested to the bank that they can give me zero NT credit limit for all I care. I don’t want the credit per se, I just want to be able to buy stuff online and get it delivered to my billing address. The zero credit limit concept was too much for them. :loco:
I used to think that getting the bl**dy facilities was the problem. Once you had done that you had (presumably) established that your connection with Taiwan was more than transitory. I thought no one would be interested in taking away facilities as long as you used them reasonably.
But now it seems in all kinds of ways that there are people interested in making life difficult.
As far as the credit cards thing goes the banks are going to encourage bad debts rather than reduce them. What encouragement is there for the foreign customer to play ball with a bank if his or her facilities are withdrawn every time an arc expires? Isn’t China full of Taiwanese who have run away from their obligations here and who can’t be touched?
I work in a local law firm. While I don’t have time to take a lead you can certainly count me in on any battles to be fought. Any suggested dates for an initial meeting?
Feiren is right about the “gui fan” thing. In another thread I tried to point out that new legislation wasn’t always necessary in Taiwan to get things done, and this is an example. The legislature passes an act, which tells a ministry in the broadest terms you’ll ever see to do something. Then the ministry makes some implementation regulations. Then, it makes up it’s guidelines, rules, and somewhere amongst all that is a “gui fan”.
I am concerned about the direction this is all going. Why are our driving licences limited. Why would anyone think about limiting the duration of a foreigner’s credit card? Why does the Ren’ai Lu Chunghwa Telecom office not even let foreigners have telephones? I hope it’s not just pure xenophobia, because I thought things were going quite well up to this point, what with permanent residency, and multiple work permits. (When I first came here the spouse of an ROC citizen couldn’t even work on the strength of his marriage. And I stress “his”.)
I have a credit card from ICBC. I don’t have a guarantor and (so far) it is not tied to my ARC time. I got it by convincing them if I put money in a term deposit account that they would not let me withdraw from. I had tried before to get a credit card from HSBC and Chinatrust who both said they would be willing to issue one to a foriegner if I met a long list of criteria (which I did, inluded income over NT$100,000 per month before tax, having lived here for several years etc). Both refused me. No reason given. That was about 4 or 5 years ago I guess.
The ICBC card I have now has a limit or NT$39,000 even though I deposited NT$50,000. Anyway, I sometimes need to pay for things I am importing in a hurry from the USA. Usually the $$ will go over my credit limit. In theory I should just be able to deposit more money in the account and get the credit limit raised accordingly. Usually it fails and I have to make another trip or 2 to the bank to argue about this. If we used one of my (Taiwanese) workers cards in the same way we did not have that problem as often (although in fairness her card was also refused once or twice this way). Last time I got mad at a particularly rude bank worker who had assured me my card was fine for the higher credit (when it had just been refused) and asked to talk to the manager. He was quite polite and I could see he was genuinely shocked when he saw all of my situation. Turned out he had been working overseas before and told me he had no trouble getting a card then. He said he had never seen a delt with a credit card here but had never thought about it before. I am not living in Taibei though and where I am certainly there are less foreigners.
Me not being able to use the extra money on the card when I have already given the cash to the bank seems awfully like the foreigners who have not been able to withdraw cash from an ATM overseas.
This all seems like part of a seemingly endless list of BS making life difficult for foreigners. I have lived in Singapore before, and spent plenty of time arround a Singaporean ex-g/f of mine who lived with me in Australia for a few years. I experienced none of the phones with drivers licenses, telephones, banks etc, etc that we foreigners have here.
I know a lot of people will think I am mad but maybe what is needed is a more radical solution. The goverment could change these things, but probably won’t until forced. Imagine 100 or better still 1000 foreigners had gone to the 3/26 DPP/TSU rally with signs saying USA, Japan or whatever other countries the people there were from please do not help Taiwan until Taiwan stops unfair treatment of foreigners. The media would be sure to pick it up big time. And it would largely destroy any help they might otherwise get from the protest. Probably whoever lead the foreigners on the day would get kicked out of Taiwan, but if it was someone who was about to leave anyway or already had ROC citizenship… But if it was clear to the government that such a protest could occur again if they did not act, then I think we would find things changing pretty fast. It would need to be very clearly a-political (ie not pro or against green or blue side) but with clear explinations (on flyers and banners) of why we were doing this, how Taiwanese who went to our countries would not encounter such problems, and how it hurt Taiwan by alienating foreigners who might otherwise be sympathetic to Taiwan, and how in some cases we can’t just leave easily (which no doubt some idiots would tell us to do if we don’t like the way things are). A good example would be students who have come here on a 6 month visa, classes paid in advance but then when they get here find they can not get a drivers license and that an international one can not be used for that long.
Unfortunately, I don’t think CSB would even get to see the letter. Mayor Ma can’t influence central government policy. I say we start with an online petition like Maoman did with the ICRT thing. We also need to set up a meeting and draft a letter that we all agree on and touches on the most important complaints. I will send that letter to my contact in the US Congress, and we can also send a letter to AmCham.
After that, I suggest that we go in and meet with this dickwad in the central bank, carrying a copy of the “gui fan” with us and discuss it with him. If he refuses to meet with us or gives us the run-around, then we go the route of the media – i.e. writing letters to the editor (in the Chinese newspapers), and even see if we can get on the TV news, stressing that Taiwanese in our countries do not face the same obstacles that we do when it comes to things like telephones, driver’s licenses, establishing credit, etc. Stress how this hurts the image of Taiwan and will turn skilled foreign workers and investment away.
We’ve been complaining about this issue for a long time. I think it’s about time we set a date for a meeting and start getting the first letters sent out.
Robert Wexler (D-Fl) is the top guy in the “Taiwan Caucus” in the U.S. House of Representatives. A letter to him may also be a good start. If we could convince a high-level congressman to agree that we are being treated unfairly, a call from his/her office to AIT to “lean on” the Taiwanese government may be enough.
Had a call today from my neighbour, who handled my application at ABN Amro. I applied for a ATM/visa debit card - no credit, just access to my own money.
I was turned down because I don’t have a local guarantor, and I am fucking livid. I’ve had enough. Who wants to get together this weekend to draw up battle plans?
I’m up for it.
Alleycat’s? Carnegie’s? My office (close to Tai Da) 4b 2pm Saturday? JB’s? Enspyre’s office? Some random other place?
Weekends really aren’t very good for me … that’s the only time I have to gather data and work on my thesis … I’ve also got the second half of my qualifying exams coming up. Mon-Fri in the afternoon or evening would be much better. I have class at Tai-da on Thursdays until 5:20pm. If we could meet near your office then, that would be the most convenient for me. I’ve already started working on a draft of a letter to the Taiwan Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.
I can do Saturday.
Do you guys want to take this off this thread? (At least for the discussions of when and where to meet.)
I’ve made a list at http://www.coollist.com called credit-in-taiwan. You can sign up there if you like.
I’m not trying to take the initiative from anyone but just think that the forum here isn’t the best place to discuss our schedules and so on.
[Edit: Closed down the list as there were almost no takers… oh well, it was just an idea! 
]
We’ll let this discussion run, then unsticky it and start a new one as the situation evolves.
Hmm, it seems that Chinatrust is treating different people in very different ways. So far they have treated me well, and given me what i have asked for, hell, they are even currently in the process of giving me a checking account here.
Loretta, i would be interested in furthering this discussion, and if you are arranging a get together then include me, whilst i am currently getting what i need, the new regs are a real bummer.
Have we worked anything out yet as far as a meeting? Weekends really aren’t that good for me … I can send out the letters to Representatives Wexler (head of the Taiwan Caucus in the House) and Roscoe Bartlett (my ‘guanxi’ in the Congress) on my own if you want me to. Perhaps we should draft something up for AmCham and our foreign trade offices together.
One thought, though … perhaps we should meet with the head of the Central Bank before we do anything, so that when he blows us off we can include that in our letters. Would we be able to protest legally if we filed the paperwork with the Taipei city government? Or would that still get us deported? Maybe Hartzell could jump in on this topic …
LB, weekend may not be good for you but most of us are only free then. I have work every weekday evening except Wednesday, and I know that Hexuan works office hours. Traveller too? A few other people are interested but also work evenings.
Is there any time when everyone can make it? And where?
My proposal: Alleycat’s on Wednesday evening, say 8pm?
Or Carnage on saturday afternoon, but it’s short notice. Next week?