Credit in Japan is a different beast. Credit card companies avoid the whole discrimination angle by just black boxing applicants so when they deny your application, they will never tell you why and just say it’s a trade secret. No way to prove they are denying you as a foreigner either. Maybe they brought their way of doing things to Taiwan.
Rakuten will never accept my application, I tried half a dozen times just keep getting the declined SMS and like in Japan they won’t tell me why, just that I failed their comprehensive credit screening
it is indeed more subtle and it is infuriating, but they take your application, they let you apply.
Then they reject you, I am not too versed into JP financial regulations, so can’t comment much, but I do not know if they r required to disclose the reasons for rejections. In HK we financial institutions r not required.
Here in TW they r so stupid that they just tell u: foreigner, don’t like u, can’t apply or we reject since u r a foreigner.
That’s just dumb and can be easily reversed with a complaint.
But if they do it by the book, get all ur docs, “review” them, and then tell u sorry no, that’s difficult. There is no obligation to provide a service, there is obligation to let u apply.
I don’t have direct experience, but yeah I understand that foreigners living in Japan have it worse than us, with little to no legal protection against discrimination. That said, I read when I posted the other day that Rakuten seems to be one of the more foreigner-friendly ones in Japan.
It’s also occurred to me before that there would be much smarter ways for Taiwanese banks to discriminate without making it so obvious. Hopefully they don’t realize that too quickly as well. It’s what I was getting at in this post:
A fun observation: The tax residency section of the online banking for ICBC (the Chinese one, not Mega Bank) actually accepts the new ARC numbers. Now if only Taiwan could catch up…
(The website admittedly does throw up a bunch of other errors because of the mismatch between my nationality and country of tax residence etc., but not having a “1” or “2” as the second character is apparently fine.)
Quick question: is it that we as foreigners cannot buy HSR tickets online or just the discount tickets, like early bird specials? Even with the new ID numbers, I mean.
IFIC they only ask to see ID when collecting tickets if you have purchased a discounted ticket due to disability or old age, but not always. Recently my wife purchased a HSR ticket for her dad with the old age discount, but they didn’t even care to see his ID card (which we forgot to bring anyway).
As a note, depending on your mobile carrier, even if they did allow foreigner ID numbers for this login method, it might not work, because some carriers list your ID number as your passport number instead of your actual ARC ID number. In that case it’s easier to use your Citizen Digital Certificate. Also, if you want to get your pension data but this site isn’t letting you, until they fix it, you can also download the data on the MyData platform. I go straight to the MyData platform anyway, because ever since they updated the labor pension platform with that awful new interface I can’t find the information I used to be able to get.
Some banks do this too (CTBC gives you a new ID number!!!) so if you ever need to use your bank account/debit card to verify yourself that won’t work either.
that was my whole point with my complaint with NCC and Taiwan Mobile, but NCC is toothless and can’t care less, Taiwan mobile adamant in their position notwithstanding the several logic and regulation issues, and the poor consumer council at Taipei city gov powerless to make them comply even if they agreed with me.
@au I do hope you will be reconfirmed as minister, this is a matter of attention.
You’re right, but @slawa and I have already got Chunghwa to use our APRC numbers for this (after some arguing).
Actually though, I’m not sure whether that completely fixed the problem. I’ve previously fumbled my way through registering for NHI online services (before forcing Chunghwa to use my APRC number rather than passport number) and MyData (after doing so), but I did have some issues with the verification process during the latter. I’m not exactly sure what the issues were from the vague Chinese error messages and descriptions of the various verification possibilities and just trying to complete the process as quickly as possible while being frustrated.
Is there a convenient way for me to check if this verification process works for me? (Note I don’t have an employer here, so I’m probably not registered with the pension system or anything anyway.)
That did not show up for my colleagues who were also buying.
