It’s Your Money > Banking

Banking, new laws, no more bank accounts for tourists period

(1/8) > >>

Lee2:
My wife and I and a friend spent the whole day going from bank to bank trying to get him a bank account, he wanted to buy a condo but he is on a tourist visa, the banks all wanted ACR cards but to be more specific, they said new rules came down this year which states no tourist ACR cards, so he can either get an investors visa, a student visa or a resident visa if he wants to open an account or find a developer who has connections with banks, such as Ayala, and buy a property from them based on them opening a bank account for him to make payments on it, weird, but I thought I would let readers know, there are apparently new banking laws this year.

So if you are planning on coming here on a Balikbayan or any type of tourist visa, you best set up other ways to have or get cash here.

Anyone know of any other way??

starrt:
Hi Lee,

My wife and I purchased a new condo here in Taguig from a large developer. When we finally found a bank willing to give us a mortgage they insisted on seeing my visa and ACR card. If I had not been in the process of getting the Permanet Resident visa, who knows if the bank would have given us the mortgage.

That law, or regulation, must be new for this year as last year we got a car loan, while I still had a Probationay Permanent Visa.

Good luck in finding a financial institution that will give your foreigner friend a mortgage. By the way, some develoeprs, such as DMCI, have in house mortgages which they will give to pretty much anyone, so even though the terms are exhorbitant, that may be a possibilty.

Thomas

BudM:
Like anything else, things get tougher and more costly to do because of people who screw things over for everyone else.  The banks catch all kinds of crap and keep getting more costly regulations for dealing with foreigners.

bigrod:
Ok I have Googled this and can find nothing supporting a new law/rule etc.  In my 8 years I have been told about many rules/laws etc., many of which I had already researched.  So of course my response is please show me the rule/law you are referencing, which in many cases they cannot produce anything to confirm their statement/supposition.  Plus many locals have a hard time actually understanding what is written the laws/rules, mainly a requirement with term "and", "or".  The "and" requires all blocks be ticked while the "or" can substitute something for another item.

Just had conversation with my BDO branch manager according to him no change on having ACR-I card(Tourist/Perm Res)
.  I am assuming your friend is not married to a Filipina so he needs to establish some residency time here to get a bank account.  Now getting the Condo developer to support opening the account will normally be a big help.  In BDO's case buying from SMDC(umbrella  Co) would facilitate the opening of a checking account.

Chuck

iamjames:
No country gives accounts to tourists. You always have to give proof of residency : Phone Bills, Electric bills, etc.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page