Wow… you must post the memo to my NZ, Aus, Irish banks that all have my Taiwan address along with my phone number for SMS codes that they send out whenever I login… Note that I never use a VPN.
Should I start using one so they don’t know I am out of the country?
KYC laws relate to knowing your client. A client simply residing out of a country doesn’t mean a bank will cancel credit or close an account.
If the account went inactive for many years and the bank wasn’t able to contact you… then yes, they may close the account.
Just be transparent, update your address and you’ll have no problem. - If you really can’t update the address then just make sure the account is active. I.e you put money in and use the card once/twice a year.
Also many people complain their foreign credit cards don’t work for online orders in Taiwan sometimes. - I found my Australian cards work. The reason is because they have my Taiwan address so when I verify I put in a Taiwan address when using the card.
hear hear, some institutions can have policies not to entertain certain products (or any relationship at all) with residents abroad, but they must disclose it.
Never hide indeed, being transparent makes everything easier if you have nothing to hide (some might have, but that’s their problem).
This is called AVS (Address Verification System/Service), one of the systems to verify cardholder data to authorise transactions. So yes, many times here in TW the merchant will verify the address, and since they only accept TW addresses, if you put a TW address on a foreign card with a foreign registered address, it won’t work.
Some of them then a blind eye, some of them are OK with it, and others will straight up close your credit products if they find out you are out of the country. Your experience doesn’t account for all scenarios
You should post your memo to one of my banks that the csr was nice enough to tell me to in advance once I say I’m out of country they will cancel all my accounts there. Oops, forgot to tell them
Some banks do not want to deal with the regulatory burden of dealing with nonresidents
Exactly. I lost all but one of my European credit cards, two bank accounts and some insurances because the banks / insurance companies won’t do business with non-residents. (I would have lost even more had I moved to the US).
Not because of any laws preventing them to do so, but because they don’t want the additional hassle of having clients in another country which might introduce all kinds of complications (higher postage for sending mail, potentially having to follow customer-protection laws of another country, potentially being exposed to another legal system in another country, …).
It took me more than a month to get approved. If you have an A(P)RC then you can’t use the app. You must log in through the website, which has limited functions.
Next step is to apply for the credit cards. I got the paperwork from the bank to apply as foreign person’s cannot apply online. I’ll submit the documents by mail. I’ll update after I finish that process.
Taiwanese banks are a whole different ball o’ wax. There is no way they would ever stop foreigners from having a basic account because their real customers, the local bosses would freak. If they could refuse to open foreigner accounts with impunity they would.
You’ve got to love how Taiwan’s first foreigner-friendly bank is anonymizing the names of foreigners for our security.
Hi J●NES ANDREW SAMUEL
You have logged in to Richart’s official Web Bank at 2023/05/04 15:27:15
Warm Reminder:
Warm Reminder: If this was not you, please change your password as soon as possible, or contact our customer service (02)8798-9088 / 0800-888-800 (Local Landlines Only).
(system mail, please do not reply directly)
(Just an example, those aren’t my real family and middle names.)
I just received my first withholding and non-withholding tax statement from Richart/Taishin today, and despite asking me four fucking times to confirm I’m exclusively tax resident in Taiwan, and despite @fifieldt’s discussions with the management of Taishin, they’ve still fucked it up and listed me as tax resident in the UK.
I threw mine in the trash today. I dug it out. I verified and I have the same issue. Not GB, but still. So what does this mean? I haven’t followed that other thread.
Also, I went to Tahshin to receive foreign funds today (after they asked me to come in). They made phone call after phone call and called people over and it took forever.
You probably want to remove your address from that too?
Interesting that they’ve still reported you as non-resident (<183 days) and used “NOTIN” in the TIN field (Taiwanese banks seem to be using that as a catch-all code whenever they don’t know what to write there?).
They’ve also listed my income category as 5A rather than 92, though would need to check what those mean.
