Good point. I had answered the question thinking Yuli was asking if a passport was necessary to fill out the paperwork.
Like most other administrative tasks in Taiwan, the national ID card is used in lieu of the passport. […][/quote]
Thanks, that answers my question. 
I hope someone will write to Chungwa Post president 胡雪雲 to ask for an explanation why clients who don’t have Taiwanese citizenship cannot get a debit card (a restriction that, given that the associated financial risk is zero, would seem rather illogical from a business point of view - even more so in light of the fact that some other banks, i.e., competitors, do issue such cards to their foreign clients). If it is not the president herself who decides about such matters, surely whoever she would ask to ensure that the writer of such a letter receives a reply would have to be in a position to understand what is going on (in fact, i would not be surprised if it turns out that the current restriction was not an expression of company policy but simply the result of a blockage at a lower level).
OK, I’m going in. I’ve got nothing better to do today and I haven’t had a good logical why-not so far this trip, so I’m dying for one.
:thanks:
Disclosure: although i have no connection to the Taiwanese postal or banking system, i hope to be able to make use of either in an efficient and convenient manner once i live in Taiwan - thus i have a vested interest in seeing this little problem resolved.
Round One: Guting Post Office.
The same folks who handed me several hundred thousand NT dollars after I mistakenly signed my married name instead of my maiden name (which iswhat they have on record) informed me that no, they couldn’t issue a card to a foreigner. When I pointed out that I’d had an account with them for 16 years without adverse incident, they offered a toll-free number to call.
Being up for some more active exercise of my rusty Mandarin, however, I told them I preferred to go in person. They conferred awhile and gave me the address, so tomorrow afternoon we should be good to play “Up the Bureaucratic Food Chain” round two. 
hhahahahaha, you’re expecting LOGIC? from the PostOffice?
Um, best of luck. I mean that.
(I want one of those cards too.)
[quote=“ironlady”]Round One: Guting Post Office.
The same folks who handed me several hundred thousand NT dollars after I mistakenly signed my married name instead of my maiden name (which iswhat they have on record) informed me that no, they couldn’t issue a card to a foreigner. When I pointed out that I’d had an account with them for 16 years without adverse incident, they offered a toll-free number to call.
Being up for some more active exercise of my rusty Mandarin, however, I told them I preferred to go in person. They conferred awhile and gave me the address, so tomorrow afternoon we should be good to play “Up the Bureaucratic Food Chain” round two. :-)[/quote]
Which office did they send you to for round two? I am writing to Director General Hu and want to know where she works.
By the way, I would encourage everyone to write a letter! If they get enough letters maybe something will be done.
Could anyone put up a standard formular in Chinese, and then we could use that?
胡總經理您好
我是個(nationality)人，已經住在台灣(how long in Taiwan)了。我在9月22日媒體報導中讀到中華郵政宣布在10月首度發行Debit Card（記帳金融卡）。根據聯合報的報導，中華郵政總經理胡雪雲指出，郵政現有兩千多萬戶存戶，持有提款金融卡的有效用戶就達一千多萬戶，一旦中華郵政 Debit Card發行後，將歡迎所有持金融卡用戶都來換發。9月30日中華郵政推出記帳金融卡。胡雪雲說，希望儲戶用戶都能轉用申請Visa金融卡服務。中華郵政 將提供免費轉換服務。另外，台灣的英文媒體報導這個新聞。按照Taipei Times，10月1日的報導，胡雪雲表示，“we hope every one of our account holders above the age of 18 will apply for this debit card to help manage their finances while enjoying shopping” 。看到這個新聞的時候，許多外國人表示讚揚，期待享受記帳金融卡的功能，特別是可以減少在國外購物的不便。
在中英文報導中，胡總經理從來沒有提出申請記帳金融卡限於本國人。
在我到台灣的第一個星期，就開了中華郵政的帳戶。而我在(date you went to the post office)日前往(name of post office)郵局，詢問辦理記帳金融卡的手續時，郵局職員居然跟我說:「外國人不能申請 記帳金融卡」。我當日寄信給客服信箱，但並未得到滿意的回應(this sentence I added because I already wrote to them by email, delete if not appropriate)。我實在很疑惑，中華郵政不是宣布所有持金融卡用戶都可以來換記帳金融卡嗎？難道我不是持金融卡用戶嗎？想請問外國人不能辦理記帳金融卡的理由是什麼呢? 台灣其它銀行 （譬如兆豐國際商業銀行、台新銀行等） 提供記帳金融卡給外國人。尤其中華民國政府現在有追求「友善國際生活環境」的政策，而中華郵政又是國營的企業，我認為有多配合此項政策的必要，能夠開放外籍人士申請記帳金融卡。
(name）敬上
存簿帳號 : (account number)
Letters can be sent to:
胡雪雲總經理
10603 台北市大安區金山南路2段55號
Any suggestions for improvement please let me know. I added a few sentences without checking with my Taiwanese friend.
Anyone who doesn’t read or write Chinese can also write to them in English.
Hu Sheue-yun
No. 55 Jinshan South Road Section 2
Da’an District
Taipei City 10603
I went to post the letter today. The volunteer workers at the post office were helpful (as always). They posted my letter without charge to President Hu at HQ.
Rounds Two, Three and Four: main post office on Jinshan S. Rd. (the entrance is actually on the cross street but I don’t recall which street it is). Anyway you can’t miss it.
Round Two: the counter. Asked the xiaojie politely if I could get a VISA jinrong ka. She responded that it was not possible for a foreigner to get one. I asked her to whom I could speak, she gave me the same toll-free number. I indicated that I had plenty of time and would be happy to go upstairs and speak to anyone available. She fell back on her supervisor, who phoned upstairs (it was quite funny, really, priceless dialogue like “What? No, I’m not kidding you. There really is a foreigner here who wants to speak to someone about the Visa jinrong cards…uh-huh…uh-huh…okay, I’ll put her on.”) I then indicated that I did not wish to discuss the matter by phone, but would prefer to do it face-to-face and could wait any length of time necessary.
Round Three: a xiaojie comes down from upstairs. I greet her in the proper manner, offering a business card. She has no card to give me (hmmmm…) and obviously is not someone in a position of authority. She attempts to “explain” to me that this is not because I am a foreigner, it is because the Visa jinrong cards are so new, the procedures are not yet set up, there are a lot of problems with them, etc. etc. and you know, you foreigners come and go so much…I stopped her here politely and explained that there are hundreds of foreigners who are long-term residents of Taiwan, who never leave the island, or do so much less than Taiwanese, who own property and are fluent in Mandarin. This stumped her for awhile, so she fell back on the usual “procedures…committees” at which time I asked to speak to her supervisor.
Round Four: Mr. Sun the Supervisor (presumably: he too did not have the courtesy to bring a business card downstairs; these “meetings” were held in the main post office area, so that we had plenty of spectators!) Mr. Sun, flanked by the xiaojie, made several points:
- We do not offer these to foreigners at this time because our procedures are not yet mature. It would not enhance Taiwan’s image to have problems with these cards issued to foreigners.
- …because there are still lots of problems happening with the cards, like overdraws and suchlike, and we couldn’t communicate with foreigners in that event.
- …because foreigners would be overseas and there is no family member to get ahold of here should there be a problem with the card.
- …because foreigners are a higher risk group (he didn’t say this directly but there was considerable discussion of risk, and he didn’t seem able to take a logical stance on the item.)
I told him that if he was concerned with Taiwan’s image, not issuing cards was sure to damage it, balanced against the possibility of an isolated problem.
I pointed out that banking is all based on risk, and asked what statistics the Post Office was using to prove a higher risk among foreigners. Naturally there were none. I pointed out that foreigners need to register their addresses and to get permission to change jobs, substantially lowering any perceived “risk”. I pointed out that I had had an account with the Post Office for 16 years and a fairly substantial average balance during that time. I suggested that I would be happy to recommend a test group of, say, 20 foreigners with excellent characteristics to test out the feasibility of issuing cards to foreigners.
I also offered to take care of any translation issues that came up as a result of problems communicating with foreigners.
I pointed out that it would be a simple thing to put a limitation on the database that would, for example, make the card good only within Taiwan, and that in any event any good databse would check the balance so that there was no danger of overdrafts.
In the end, Mr. Sun looked rather stunned, and the xiaojie was giggling periodically and saying, “Well, that makes sense.”
The bottom line is: they really just never thought about offering them to foreigners, because that would have required putting an extra bit of length into the “ID number” field or whatever. They fell back on the usual excuses when confronted by numerous foreigners who felt this was incorrect. They are back-pedalling and saying that after a “certain length of time” to get the system working correctly, they will certainly issue cards to their foreign friends, but probably after referring to the regulations of other banks who have been doing this business longer and have accumulated more valuable experience in this regard. I said, “So you are simply going to slavishly copy the regulations of other banks which might be just as unfair and just as based on fallacious assumptions as the reasons you have just given me?” to which he answered, “Yes…erm, I mean no. That is…”
All in all a good time was had by all, and I think he did leave our little interview with a slightly different perspective on what he had previously thought were all solid reasons not to issue cards to foreigners. However, precisely how important Mr. Sun is is not clear. He could be the file clerk for all I know. But feel free to stop over at Jinshan S. Road and have a chat with him.
BTW, Mr. Sun reports that these cards CANNOT be used online anyway. Anyone have a different experience?
Wow, that sounds like fun. 
Supposedly men tend more toward sticking to rules while women tend more toward evaluating situations individually. Maybe such a difference cannot be proven statistically, but it also happens to be my own experience. So i think that Ms. Hu, Chungwa Post’s president will (eventually) also arrive at the same conclusion as the upstairs lady in the main post office. (Any bets? 
)
post.gov.tw/post/internet/b_ … 3498951090
I haven’t had a chance to try it out, as I prefer to make online purchases with a credit card. However if true it is a bit of a bummer.
By the way, not all Visa Debit accepting merchants have terminals/POS capable of actually checking whether the debiting account has enough funds to pay the entire transaction. Some do (for a while Visa ran a special type of card called Visa Electron which would only authorize a payment if enough funds were available to cover it) but many do not. It is possible to make a purchase with Visa Debit that would overdraft your debit/checking account. This is likely more of a minor consideration in the decision 中華郵政 made to not extend VISA debit cards to foreign customers. More likely it’s just another case of government being lazy and/or perceiving the cost-benefit of covering foreigners to be not worth pursuing.
Merchants who can’t get an automatic (electronic) confirmation of sufficient funds (for example taxi drivers or others who use the mechanical card-imprint-on-a-slip machine) have to call VISA via a designated phone number to ensure the transaction gets authorized, and they get a transaction number from VISA that they record on the slip. This confirmation method is the same whether the customer uses a credit card or a debit card - in fact, nobody can tell whether the card is a credit card or not (and that has from the beginning been a big selling point for those cards).
Aren’t those what we call “debit cards”? 
Yes, if a merchant fails to get the required authorisation number from VISA and the bank subsequently pays VISA when thebill comes in, i.e., accepts the overdraft at that time (many banks do that in the case of long-term customers and if the amount is relatively small - some banks also offer overdraft insurance). If the bank rejects the overdraft (usually in the case of larger amounts) and the customer does not not deposit any funds to the account within a certain amount of time, then VISA will stop asking the bank to pay and instead not pay the merchant.
Anyway… do you have any additional information? Right now i can’t see how this money flow would be different in the case of foreign customers.
That’s only if the card is processed through the Visa credit card processing network. A debit card can be processed as a debit or a credit transaction. Of course even if you press credit, while the authorization runs through the Visa credit card system, in the end your bank is still making a debit transaction.
See Visa Card Acceptance Guide for more info on how merchants can accept Credit, Debit, or both.
There is a difference. Quote from wikipedia entry:
The difference between Visa Electron and Visa Debit is that payments with Visa Electron require that all the funds be available at the time of transfer, i.e., Visa Electron card accounts may not be overdrawn. Visa Debit cards, on the other hand, allow transfers exceeding available funds up to a certain limit. Some online stores and all offline terminals (e.g., on trains and aircraft) do not support Visa Electron because their systems cannot check for the availability of funds.
I’m afraid while I can chat at length about electronic payment schemes, I can’t help elucidate why the CHP will not issue foreigners Visa debit atm cards. As I said above, its likely the reason boils down to a simple “they don’t wanna”, rather than technical or legal causes.
Right. That’s the kind of card we are talking about…
Look at taipeitimes.com/News/biz/arc … 2003454895 , where it says, “The ‘buy now, pay now’ card will not allow cardholders to overspend at Visa International’s global outlets. The card will also function as an ATM card at 1.4 million Visa ATMs worldwide and ATMs at the post office’s 1,321 outlets, Hu said.”
[quote] A debit card can be processed as a debit or a credit transaction. Of course even if you press credit, while the authorization runs through the Visa credit card system, in the end your bank is still making a debit transaction.
See Visa Card Acceptance Guide for more info on how merchants can accept Credit, Debit, or both.[/quote]
OK - i knew there was a difference, but that PDF file gives me more detail (and also answers to some other questions i have).
There is a difference. Quote from wikipedia entry:
The difference between Visa Electron and Visa Debit is that payments with Visa Electron require that all the funds be available at the time of transfer, i.e., Visa Electron card accounts may not be overdrawn. Visa Debit cards, on the other hand, allow transfers exceeding available funds up to a certain limit. Some online stores and all offline terminals (e.g., on trains and aircraft) do not support Visa Electron because their systems cannot check for the availability of funds.[/quote]
I see - and in those cases there is, of course, nobody who could make a phone call to VISA. That PDF file also explains how those Electron cards are physically different - they can’t be used with the paper slip imprinting machine. So now i understand that part completely, i think.
I don’t have time right now but that stuff from page 92 onward looks pretty interesting…
I got a reply back to my letter for the Post Office, which despite the rather archaic Chinese said exactly the same thing as the email they sent me previously: due to “business considerations” they are not issuing cards to foreigners. Of course they didn’t say what these considerations might be.
The letter was dealt with by an underlying to Director General Hu. I wonder if there is any way of making anyone who actually makes decisions in the Post Office deal with this matter.
Letter-writing campaign to the Liberty Times and other Chinese-language papers?
Letter-writing campaign directly to Ma Ying-jeou? (His English is very good.)
Or having 2 foreigners per day showing up at the Chunghwa Post main office? 
I can always post a “learn to take the Post Office to task for debit card discrimination” podcast Chinese lesson…
Unfortunately as is the case with most bureaucracies, even if you can get in touch with someone with the power to affect the changes you desire, there is not necessarily the will or impetus to actually take action. I think the most effective move would be to try to get a significant group of foreign workers who currently bank with Chunghwa Post to threaten to move their accounts to a different bank. Possibly contact some foreign worker/teacher interest groups for support in the matter. In the end, money still makes the world go 'round.
Maybe we should write to the government agency that supervises the post office, I’m not not sure which one that would be.
Or we could write letters to the English language newspapers?
Closing my Post Office account is not an option: all salaries and scholarship monies from public universities in Taiwan are paid into the Post Office.
[quote=“Mawvellous”]Maybe we should write to the government agency that supervises the post office, I’m not not sure which one that would be.
Or we could write letters to the English language newspapers?
Closing my Post Office account is not an option: all salaries and scholarship monies from public universities in Taiwan are paid into the Post Office.[/quote]
Not quite true.
My salary (from a public university) goes into my account with 1st Bank. Still, I had to choose between that and the PO, couldn’t just choose any old bank.