List of Non-discriminatory Financial Service Providers

Taiwan Discrimination in Taiwan
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I just saw a post about getting finance for a vehicle on an ARC and thought rather than the usual complaining of which I’m a culprit we should have a thread if recommendations of financial services that don’t discriminate. There are recommendations scattered throughout Forumosa but a concise list would be convenient.

Hopefully everyone can add to this so we can find the services we need throughout our lives with less headaches.

My 3 are:

Taishin Life Insurance - Probably more about the agent than the company - Lisa Qiu. She sells products to many foreigners and she speaks English fluently. No ‘foreigners meibanfa’ rubbish. I purchased death cover and health/income protection insurance from her. She also sells private pensions and savings type products. She isn’t pushy either and will listen to your home countries offering so you can make an informed decision.
lisa.qiu@taishin.com.tw

Yu Rich Financial Services - I have my vehicle loan through them. No customer service but they don’t care about you being a foreigner. Fast food style service, they get your loan approved within a day or 2 and move on to the next customer, foreigners and Taiwanese treated the same in my experience. Chinese only but easy to deal with.

Amex - Credit card applications are exactly the same for foreigners and Taiwanese. Great customer service, even their non English speaking staff try their best to assist. They also accept overseas bank statements as proof of collateral. There’s a credit card discussion thread with more info but the general advice is that the Costco card and Amex cards are easiest to get.

Taiwan Mobile - No guarantor and treated like any other customer.

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Great thread. I will support these businesses by using their services if I can. The writing’s on the wall. Immigrant population will continue to increase as a percentage of the total population and xenophobic businesses will lose out on a fortune by denying us their services.

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Something leads me to think this is gonna be a short list…

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Then it will be easy to refer too and those providers should make a lot of money :sweat_smile:

It would be great to have a few insurance providers or an agent dealing with many providers here. I kind of felt like I couldn’t shop around even though Lisa was great, I didn’t feel like I had other options.

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Taiwan Mobile treat foreigners pretty well, or at least better than the other operators. Years ago I was able to get a contract with them with no guarantor or down payment. I can only presume things have gotten better since then.

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I forgot about them, they were great to me too!

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Yep. We’ve found them all. Topic solved. Time to close thread.

I’m kidding.

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I can one up that.

I got a contract with no guarantor or deposit and I didn’t need to take my passport in!

Take THAT Fareastone!

And if anyone is wondering, it’s the $999/m combo for unlimited 4G and 120 mbps home broadband.

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Changhua is good now too.

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I would add in general, in my experience, Cathay United has been very decent to me. Got account and 2 credit cards with them. For one had to sign for the guarantor, but it was only after one month I arrived in Tw without any history (it was the costco card), and it was pivotal to get for my credit score, so I asked my fiance’e to help and so they did. For the other, the eva air visa infinite card, applied via post, sent the document requested, 10 days later I was approved. They have a somewhat decent English phone service, but it is hard to get there, at the branch English is very rare, but I can do with my Chinese.

Taiwan mobile I agree, I like them and their service is good, coverage at par if not superior in some areas to Chungwa, and prices are better.

Amex they are Amex, you can’t complain about their service as it is the same all over the world.

For basic banking services I find that also the Post is quite ok, as long as you have your personal stamp with you, all good.

Can’t complain about Chinatrust too, got the visa line debit card with them, works very well and has very good integration with Line. Took just some convincing on why I wanted their account and that specific debit card, but after talking about line points, all went smooth.

That’s my experience in a nutshell so far, “international” banks such as HSBC are a far cry from their American/UK counterparts, have very stupid internal policies for cards or account opening, but I still use them for transfers since they are free up to a certain number of transfers per month and their app and website in English are perfect.

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I was approved for a mortgage at Taishin and approved for a second credit card with Citi. So my years of history is really good.

Cathay still won’t take me and it was because of my foreignness. Basically if they won’t even take the application, it’s the foreignness.

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The same issue with Cathay, for business and personal accounts as soon as they understood that it was for a foreigner (I was there with my Taiwanese wife hence they thought it was for her) they rejected me without any discussion.

Esun and HSBC were much more welcoming to me.

But yeah I understand that different branch locations, have different outcomes also.

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The issue is, is there is no consistency and no clearly defined rules.

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They no longer require a $2900 deposit for mobile phone contracts?

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You’re thinking of Chunghwa. Changhua Telecom is just four guys operating out of a garage south of Taichung, with only 0.035% market share and none of its own infrastructure.

They haven’t encountered a foreigner to discriminate against yet.

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I’m not sure if you did something differently on the Yu Rich application site (or I did something wrong), but the line account directs you to apply on their website directly for a loan.

You need to register with your Taiwan ID number (ARC/ APRC), however, it’s got the same rejection system as that of banks (if they allow online applications). So when you input your card number, it automatically rejects the registration because of “incorrect number format”, i.e. not the same as a Taiwanese ID number. I have the new format ID and have tried my old foreigner ID as well, but both don’t work.

They seem to have good rates and options, if it actually allows foreigners to register. But it doesn’t seem to.

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Ummm my car dealership gave me the form to fill out. Maybe ask their service staff on their line account to send you the application?

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According to their reply that i just received, only those with a national ID can apply for their loans. Residency permit holders cannot apply

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I definitely don’t have one….

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You’re definitely luckier than i am and seems like the dealer you went with knew his way around it.

This their response after i asked for the application form and said that I’ve read of foreigners applying for a loan:
需有本國身分證才能申辦 > National ID required to apply…

And i had such high hopes for them being a go-to option for loans😪

Glad it worked out for you man :+1:t3:

Taishan bank gave me the same “no loans for foreigners” excuse, so you definitely got a good agent.