that’s it folks, I am tired. Even with Control Yuan all failed:
they didn’t even bother to send me a message, I had to follow up with them. They told me to check online, and found out they just used FSC’s bogus reply ‘Online’ Bank’s xenophobic reasoning for denying "foreigners" the ability to open an account online - #1059 by Mataiou and just left it like that.
CY really useless.
I’ll email the ECCT to ask if this issue could be mentioned again/emphasized in the 2025 position paper for banking and/or better living (as it was last year).
I’ve been quite low on time and motivation recently, but I’m still intending to send a likely useless discrimination complaint to the MOI about all of these digital banks and digital accounts that exclude foreigners. That hasn’t been done yet AFAIK. Maybe a few of us could coordinate and send complaints at the same time.
let’s chat about it.
What we should do is set up something and deny Taiwan citizens born in Taiwan from applying.
Police storming the place
That could be fun. Some kind of service that only accepts foreigners and ID numbers with an 8 or a 9.
Then you could complain you’re being discriminated against, and the MOI will tell us whether that counts as discrimination. 
Also include NWOHR, NWOHR and TARC, and those not born in Taiwan with HHR and ID card.
When will you be ready to join the dark side?
People care a lot about CP / price performance ratio here so that service should one up the local equivalent. Such as mortgages for foreigners with better rates than you can get locally. Or an interest bearing account with better interest rates than local banks. I doubt a foreigner owned business would be able to acquire a money service operator license in the first place so may need a local who is sympathetic to this cause to get involved or think of non money related business ideas.
Though it shouldn’t be marked as foreigner only - that’ll probably get a quick police raid and fines / business shut down. Maybe an influential politician will get someone in the executive yuan to rule that the owners are discriminatory and get them deported. Perhaps give a cryptic error down the line that rejects if their ID doesn’t match a certain format, and say tech support is working on it in a future milestone and it will be completed soon.
Just make everything in English and Taiwanese who want to sign up have to come to our office on kinmen.
I think the easiest could be to set up an MVNO like Circles mobile. But even that would take significant capital and… run at a loss
Maybe not but a naturalised citizen with lots of money and interest could.
Only hire english speaking foreigners too and have all forms in english only 
All Taiwanese citizens can only open accounts in person and must provide proof that they aren’t American even if they have never been there and have no documentation from the US and the staff can all complain anout how 麻煩 the Taiwanese clients are
Yeah, you guys are more than welcome. Just no Taiwanese citizens born in Taiwan, because it’s difficult to design services for Taiwanese citizens and we don’t know what their future intentions are.
It’s just a business decision, not discrimination. We might include them in the future if we can be bothered. 
HSBC offers better rates on US$ fixed accounts than local banks, same regardless of nationality
HSBC TW investment accounts and fixed term deposit accounts aren’t open to Canadian nationality people. They said it’s a bank wide thing. Same with Hua Nan and many local banks.
What is this nonsense. If this was true, explain this. No issues with foreign currency fixed deposits either. Also allowed in cathay.
And investment account is not worth it due to their terribly high fees.
Need more context on your situation such as when you opened the account and your nationalities. Both HSBC Shilin and another downtown branch said it’s their bank policy to not allow US or Canadian nationality from opening investment or fixed term deposit accounts. I have a personal banker at HSBC and Hua Nan. The Hua Nan banker asked around and came to the same conclusion. Some local banks such as ESun or Standard chartered do allow Canadians to invest.
I was too lazy to take photo of canadian passport - the only one they are aware of. You open the deposits yourself online, no staff to stop you. Trading works at cathay too btw.
I know many non-tw institutions won’t let canadian residents open trading accounts but that doesn’t apply to non-residents like us.
Here is another thread about it. It looks like many TW banks do not allow Canadians to open investment accounts: Canadians Can NOT buy Mutual Funds in Taiwan/Outside Canada - #19 by BrentGolf
I’ll have to check if it’s possible to open an online fixed term account through HSBC’s website, though it was not possible through my personal banker (it could also be due to their lack of knowledge on the matter).
Though 1.225% is pretty bad. Why not just park it at IBKR (4.83%) or Coinbase Singapore (5.15%) which are real time with no time restrictions
