What are the best foreigner friendly banks in Taiwan?

Yup my long standing Post office account was opened with that paper and afaik that’s all they still have.

Big issue with them is they don’t take or make international wire transfers and they don’t have a credit card, just visa debit. I keep a few bucks there for when I travel on the island as there is a post office everywhere

back in the day, they didn’t even have VISA debit! :grandpa:

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You probably predate my arrival then haha

I arrived in 2006.

Shoot i only have a atm card with no arc…

$25/trade is insane these days. Is there anything like Robinhood?

I’m curious. What’s stopping people from using TD Ameritrade or some other online brokerage for trades? Many people above seemed to have mentioned going with banks and paying crazy fees, and I don’t understand the benefits of going this route.

due to tax and residency issues, not all online brokers allow to open an account with them, this is the main problem.

This is a major one considering that Taiwan has a very competitive tax regime for capital gains accured via stonk trading.

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I see. I found some threads on this website that said that it’s easy for a non-US citizen living and working in Taiwan to buy US stocks using TD Ameritrade… But maybe that’s not true, or maybe it’s not easy for US citizens? Not sure…

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There were some issues for me to open an account as a non American , there were higher fees anyway when I looked into it. I don’t have an American bank account either obviously. Still it may work out much better if doing lots of trades.

It’s easy

I use ESun. They were able to process my US stimulus check at least, and I never get too much crap from them.

I had a record of number paper from day one and still 30 banks poo pooed me

People (forumers) told me its not discrimination , if its not what is? They said its company policy , i said show me, they were all like i dont have it to show you haha

I made a couple of girls at First Bank mad at me last year when I tried to open an account and they insisted they needed my passport. (They didn’t)
So I said call Taipei and ask and just sat there without leaving. They realized they were wrong and opened the account but I got a lot of stink eye

HSBC is not too bad… key benefit for me is their Global Transfer capability. You can very easily transfer money from one HSBC account to another one somewhere else in the world (assuming that both accounts are in your name). The charge is minimal (think it’s NT 10 or so). For Taiwan there is a limit to how much you can transfer out on a daily basis though (think it’s ~NT 500k). You can create accounts in most (all?) the major global currencies… in fact you would have to in order to transfer money out since in most cases it’s not possible to accept Taiwan dollars outside of Taiwan (ie. in my experience, US financial institutions are not able to accept Taiwan Dollar wire transfers)

I believe Citibank has a similar feature but haven’t used them

Have had my share of annoying paperwork/bureaucratic crap but think that’s more a function of how banking works in Taiwan rather than specific to HSBC… though I think local banks can be less problematic. HSBC is considered a foreign bank so the regulators pay more attention to them

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It really comes down to finding a bank employee who is prepared to help. Just about any of the high street banks CAN open an account for a foreigner with or without ARC (with the paper record of ID), but it’s whether the staff member is prepared to do the work (and find out if they don’t know).

I’d suggest trying at branches near the bigger universities, language schools or international business areas, as they tend to have more experience dealing with foreigners. Around Taipei is probably easier. Also I’ve found younger staff (with some English language ability - perhaps showing they have more of an “international” outlook) can be keener to help, put effort into finding out how to deal with any issues and do research if they don’t know.

Although an HSBC account may be easier to open (and very easy if you’ve got Premier in another country) and is great for international transfers, it’s not that useful in Taiwan because their cards often cannot be used in many of the supermarkets and other shops, there is no linking to Easycard, and the account can’t be used for local direct debits for utility bills etc. But it’s better than nothing - at least you can get cash and make transfers from ATMs with their debit card.

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This is the path I plan on taking. How quickly are the funds available once transferred? Also have you compared their exchange rates? I find the banks may advertise a low fee for transfers but then hide costs in the exchange rate they give you.

Do you typically leave your money in the foreign currency? Or convert to NT once received?

Also remember most tw banks want you to only use a bank close to your home.

Why do they care about this? Am i missing something?

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it’s not that useful in Taiwan because their cards often cannot be used in many of the supermarkets and other shops, there is no linking to Easycard, and the account can’t be used for local direct debits for utility bills etc.

@Occam

Wait why can’t I use HSBCs VISA debit card for purchases at shops/supermarkets?
What does linking to EasyCard mean? Sorry I am new here
Do I need a local bank to support local direct debits?