I saw in another thread that online banking in NZ (from Taiwan) is relatively easy – er, relative to setting up and banking from the US, I guess
I’d like to set up a Paypal account, and link it to an online bank account that I can set up from here in Taiwan. Is this possible via NZ? Would I have to be a Kiwi to do this? (I am not from NZ)
Online bank accounts that I have seen in the US so far require direct deposit arrangements for them to be free or without limited funds
That was probably me. I’m not a kiwi, and don’t even have work/residency rights, but they were happy enough to give me an account and subsequently a credit card.
nbnz.co.nz is where I bank right now. Very good people, although I suspect you may have to physically go there to sign documents and show them your passport. Maybe not. Maybe you could fax copies of everything? They must have some facility to allow foreign students etc to open accounts before arriving.
I talked to them a while back about opening a foreign currency account. They can do a US$ account, but there’s no plastic associated with it. You would have to go physically to the bank to get your cash, although I didn’t ask about doing online transfers. Perhaps you could access the account online and transfer funds to a NZ$ account, then draw NT$ here using your debit card? Seems a bit convoluted.
My accounts are in NZ$. There is no charge for receiving funds. In fact you can even mail them a cheque in most foreign currencies and they will usually process it for free. I pay, er, I think it’s NZ$3 per month for online banking.