Have any foreigners opened a bank account without using their passport?

I did, but it was more of a secondary identification, not to mention since the US likes to tax its expats, it’s kind of a must.

I just had a minor rant at a Fubon customer service guy related to this. When I opened my Fubon account back in January 2024, I was supposed to get NT$100 (:star_struck: :roll: not a typo) for opening the account and setting it up for automatic deduction of my credit card bill for at least six months (ish — I don’t remember the specifics now).

That never happened and obviously I couldn’t be bothered chasing it up because of the piddling amount, but I just happened to be calling Fubon about something else so I took the opportunity to ask why I never received the bonus.

Apparently it’s because to claim the NT$100 the account needed to have been opened online (I might have overlooked that in the e-mail, but it also wasn’t mentioned to me in the branch when I showed them the e-mail and specifically asked about the promotion)… which foreigners aren’t allowed to do.

The guy on the phone was friendly enough and said he’d escalate it to his manager and the appropriate team and they’d be in touch. I really don’t have the energy to file an FSC complaint over this lol, but I mentioned what laws I think they’re breaking to treat foreigners differently with the promotion in the hope they’d take it seriously.

Apparently the reason foreigners can’t open accounts online is risk assessment considerations, and “many foreigners” selling their bank accounts for fraudulent use when they leave Taiwan. I told the guy I wasn’t intending to do that, and anyway if they make me go into the branch because of that I should still get the poxy advertised NT$100. :money_mouth_face: :roll:

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Sounds like it has never been about different ID number formats…

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For the sake of posterity, the guy from Fubon called me back (three times) last Thursday to give me an update on this.

He said they’d discussed the issue and they couldn’t give me the promised NT$100 into my Fubon account for whatever silly reason, but they’d add NT$100 to my Costco credit card instead. He’d apparently been eagerly waiting until I got back from vacation to give me the good news (I’d told him the dates because I didn’t want to have issues with my credit card abroad).

My favorite part is how many staff hours they must have wasted discussing how to give a foreigner a poxy NT$100. :roll:

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Not sure about the laws or reasons. Only commenting to say this is a real thing. Same with sim cards/phone numbers, addresses etc with foreigners that leave. Entire businesses setup to sell numbers etc of foreigners that have left and never to return. Proper price points and everything. The crime and fraud situation here isn’t exaggerated, if anything it’s under reported.

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