I’m curious how other Forumosans handle this. Do you keep your salary mainly in a Taiwanese bank account, your home country’s bank, or split between the two? If you split it, what’s your rough percentage in each, and why?
Right now, I keep 100% of my salary in Taiwan and haven’t transferred anything out. I’m starting to wonder if that’s a good idea long-term.
Sounds like cooking crispy chicken
Singapore brokerage account with Irish domiciled US ETFs
I previously kept what I needed to live in Taiwan and transferred the rest to Australia.
Why?
Depends on how “long-term” you’re planning to stay.
And whether or not you’re a citizen.
If you’re a foreigner (like many members here), be aware that banks in Taiwan tend to lock you out of your account once your ARC expires. And there seems to be no good way to get the money out in this case without returning to Taiwan in person.
As @justintaiwan I have here what I need to live, all the rest back home in Italy invested (have my long time brokerage and investment account).
Advantages of keeping money in Taiwan: banks here, unlike in an extremely wealthy country in North America, tend not to crash and go out of business. I need money to live in Taiwan and that’s where I keep this money.
Disadvantages of keeping money in a Taiwan bank: atrociously low interest rates (I guess this provides local industries with access to cheap and plentiful capital), plus who knows what would happen if Beijing decides today’s the day to make their move.
Guy
Investments are in my home country, most of my cash is in the home country in a high yield savings account (way better interest rates there), I keep what I need in Taiwan with buffer just in case. It’s easy and free to withdraw money from my home country account though an ATM in Taiwan, so no real need to keep everything here.
Well I mean it seems to only be only that certain country in North America along with all the third world poor countries… If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
I have mutual funds purchased through a Taiwanese bank, so my investments are both in Taiwan and overseas. Taiwan bank goes bust, China invades etc I’ve still got them.
It’s also not fully recognized as a real country, has arbitrary double standards against foreigners, and could be cut off by China (e.g. blockade and cable cutting) at any moment.
Edit: I see all of the above points were essentially made already by others. Corroboration.
The second round of 10k wealth transfer after over 4 years living and working in Taiwan was kind of a last straw. I’m working on a full exit from Taiwan, all of my money and all of myself.
Nobody in Taiwan cares. You’re not a PR. You are a transitory nomad. You are not entitled to anything. But of course many will claim they are going to leave but not leave.
My friend in the mountains left Taiwan to open a Europe base… Seems like everyone is leaving.
The people you know are leaving, but there are more people, who you don’t know yet, arriving
Same in every country, some people come for work and stay for life, some come for work and leave after some/many years
In both. Only because the world tends to support China over Taiwan, so I must keep a wad overseas. Once I get enough, it’s always put into land. In both countries. I would prefer investing fully here in this country, but geopolitcs and society’s in general make that a risky endeavor. At least at my income bracket 
Thanks for the replies, everyone.
My home country is in Southeast Asia, and it’s one of the unstable ones, haha.
And I do plan to get Taiwanese PR (soon, in less than a year), but whether I will continue to live in Taiwan after I get it, I still don’t know. Taiwan’s a much better place for me to work and live compared to my country.
By the way, what service do you use to send your money and do you do it monthly?
Popular methods (probably in order of popularity)
3 years and just a few percentage if looking at the “western world”, and in 2022 we still had some of the Covid refugees here, met some of them still in 2023 but guess all are gone now
And why focus on the people from rich countries? Rich countries don’t say if the people coming/going are rich or not
And back on topic, I diversify my savings as many saying above. Not purely for safety from war, but also as currencies varies I can feel safer against a sudden drop in the exchange rates
No but it’s not a stretch to say that the average Australian/Canadian/American/Dutchman has more wealth than the average Indonesian/Filipino/Vietnam.
I wouldn’t call myself rich generally and I’m one of the 37 Australians who left. But, I would definitely consider myself rich compared to the average southeast asian country’s person.
