Richart - The first almost/kinda/marginally/minuscularly foreigner friendly bank

My US account is getting 3.3% at the moment.

The biggest pain points for me are always opening an account, tax residency declarations and international transfers and Richart has solved this for me so I’m happy I guess :joy:

They just approved my account.

First look: the exchange rate that E.SUN offers is better:

vs Richart:

On that note: Has anyone already tried to apply for one of the Richart credit cards? From what I have read, they come with an integrated LED that will make the dog’s bowtie glow when paying.

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It is official. I put in an application. What a shit show. Some really ridiculous questions and options.

Also:
Your NTD money transfer functions will be limited when transferring to others to NTD10,000 per transaction, a transfer limit up to NTD30,000 per day, and a transfer limit up to NTD50,000 per month. You will also not be able to transfer foreign currency. If you wish to get rid of these limitatations you can later on visit a Taishin bank anytime to upgrade.

By the way, I also got a question about enabling a Mastercard/Visa debit-card towards the account, did you all get that too?

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This applies to Taiwanese citizens too

It hasn’t arrived yet but you activate it online

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Yeah, but they probably issue a really sweet English-language checkbook with some cartoon animals on the cover.

Always

Edit, i thought you wrote checkbox and had icon in my head… working too hard apparently :sweat_smile:

Sorry if you already mentioned, so you went to visit the bank?

I’m going to on Monday

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I guess you’d want multiple data points for that - maybe it’s just one of those things that varies slightly from day to day (like the MasterCard vs. Visa rates, for example).

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I’m stuck with E Sun because it is the only way to receive paypal payments.

If you are afraid of being stranded with no money then make sure your E Sun card is a visa debit card, then at least you can use it overseas as a credit card.

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Just a thought but @Mataiou do you know why they don’t set something up so our Alien Citizen Digital Certificates are used as ID verification? Wouldn’t this automate things?

Yeah, but this one data point is already enough for me to tell that their rates are probably not that much better in general to bother using them instead for currency exchange.

The EUR rates you posted for both banks seemed a bit better than those for CTBC, and Mega Bank was in between the two for both buying and selling. I’m not sure if Richart is just using the Taishin rates? I haven’t previously seen much difference between Taiwanese banks, but maybe E.SUN is unusually good?

Probably need to compare multiple currencies at multiple times (ideally during business hours) to say anything definitive, though…

Their rates are a bit better than Cathay

I heard their original name was Richshart

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They say better rates than the “standard Taishin rates” on their website.

Yeah, that’s basically my point: It doesn’t appear that their currency exchange rates are their unique selling point which differentiates Richard from other banks and makes it some kind of “must have” if you want to exchange currencies.

Coz the alien digital certificate is basicqlly useless, very bad implemented and used only by a couple of gov agencies. The app on the phone to authenticate via qr code or push notification is even less used…

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Richart? No, this one’s not on OnlyFans :worried: