Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?
I travel to exotic countries to live and work remotely. If suddenly my credit card is blocked or stolen, are there any online banks where I can open an account and order a card by post to anywhere in the world, confirming my identity online?
For example, there are several banks which allows me to open a bank account without German registration and no non-residence, being in Germany. Unfortunately, they send cards only to a limited number of European countries. Even if they are ok with my passport I have to ask somebody to receive my card and send it directly to me.
120 comments
[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 199 ms ] threadI've looked into Payoneer, but they are taking a cut too and only really support a couple currencies. Any good options? I haven't looked at Transferwise yet so they might work.
You will have to pay fees, correct, that's just the cost of compliance in today's world though. The fees are comparable to fees at US based banks FWIW (except the US banks will charge those even to residents in certain cases).
As a Korean student who have studied in America and England, I found Citibank useful enough in my case. Citibank is particular good at international personal banking services and they have branches across pretty many countries. When I lost my wallet in Prague 7 years ago, I could visit a Prague branch to withdraw some money without a card immediately (called Emergency Cash or something) , confirming my identity with my passport and calling a Korean branch to make sure it's me. I'm not sure I could make a card in Prague though.
HSBC offers something similar as well.
You also can fluidly and transparently transfer between all different currencies at the interbank rate, which I find is great for travelling back home (Most of my cash is in Euros).
They are really, really good.
1. https://www.revolut.com/
But yeah, they're great.
When I got in touch with Revolut support, they needed a paper copy of the police report, along with several other documents from places such as ActionFraud (an organisation set up here in the UK to exclusively tackle fraud).
The police report took 2 hours to file, followed by a 2 week delay by Revolut to actually verify the claim and process the refund. Now, any other “bank” I’ve been with here will always refund you the money first and then resolve later.
This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Revolut, as I still use them very frequently but just a word of advice in case you’re used to the process, as I was.
What parent commenter was complaining about were the cumbersome procedures for refunds of fraudulent transactions. Given the worldwide distribution of their customers and the online only interactions with them, seem justified IMO.
Somebody stole my Capital One card awhile back and racked up over $2,000 in charges. Capital One, instantly deactivated the card, sent me a new one, and reversed all the charges.
Not with Citibank. Had money widhdrawn from atm by someone who probably copied my card, it took them 2 weeks to investigate and they only returned money after the investigation was over. And I was their customer for 15 years...Citibank is the worst bank I dealt with so far
It's not clear what the job was though. It seems it was sales related which makes it a bit better IMO.
Credibility. Gone.
If there was some other reason I was not aware of then, maybe, it's less encouraging?
Some nice things: - you can pay with it during a flight, not possible with most of the online bank - depending on the country you can apply for overdraft - you can get cards that include different types of insurance, free withdrawals in any currency etc - you can have a savings account - you can even open business accounts and many more
Affiliate link, we will both get €15: https://n26.com/r/razvana9235
Non-affiliate link: https://n26.com
//added more info
But I joined the waiting list so eventually it will work.
> I can open account worldwide?
Beware, N26 is not "mobile first", it's "mobile only".
If you intend to use it without mobile phone or your mobile phone doesn't use the original Google Play services (e.g. due to LineageOS), then you can't confirm transactions and that makes it pretty useless.
Are you confusing transactions with Google pay support? The latter doesn't support rooted phones.
[0] https://theheureka.com/massive-security-vulnerabilities-dete...
N26 appears to be one of those modern companies built on automation and algorithms where human customer service is an afterthought. It'll work until it doesn't - and then you're on your own. Wouldn't recommend using them to handle significant amounts of money.
They require picture of two ID (which I gave during their outsourced identity verification process). Then a few month later someone noticed that the expiration date of my national ID card expired and send my a mail about redoing the ID check process. I told them it was unnecessary because the ID is still valid for 5 more year and gave them a link to the official government website explaining it. They pushed for the verification and swap the two piece during, except I couldn't do it because I was living abroad (the reason I opened an account in their bank in the first place) with just my passport. I withdraw all my money from the account two days before they lock it.
Lessons learned: 1. Their support is non-cooperative. 2. Their support don't care about the laws of your country concerning ID validity (even if EU). 3. They will lock and keep you money if they want. 4. Their ID check is outsourced and done by people not speaking good French/English. 5. They cannot swap the two ID by themselves in their database.
So keep care of this "bank" and don't put in it more money than you can afford to lose on their whim.
https://youtube.com/user/nomadcapitalist
I think you should look into Estonia, they offer digital citizenship and a range of other services. It’s not a full citizenship, but it allows you to do banking and create companies and such.
Not sure how commonly accepted it is in other parts of Europe though. But I think it might be worth a look.
N26 offers very nice desktop experience too. It's not an argument that you need to use your mobile – with EU requirements and MFA thingy going on, there are very few services where you are NOT required to use your phone (none in my experience!).
Revolut couldn't accept my salary, bc it was too much money turnover for them (due to their non-bank regulatory). N26 has super convenient customer support (chat, very fast in my experience!), plus you can deposit money in common stores...Flawless experience so far (1yr now, using for salary and everything – thousands of euros in and out, not a single problem). Revolut wants to be everything, but to me lacks of some seriousness – e.g. customer support sucks big time (in my direct experience), all these ads for crypto and stuff...N26 is like the older brother to Revolut.
If I would provide documents it would maybe be possible to increase that limit – however, no one ever got back to me, after several requests from my side.
With EU-based neo-banks, I believe that because of the KYC guidelines, you'll always need a somewhat permanent address in Europe (like friends/family) that can forward you the card, when you open your account.
However if you just need a replacement card, many can send it internationally, at least for a fee.
(wrote this prior to trying to google around for the info)
My understanding has been that US "Know Your Customer" laws make it very difficult for these banks to work with US customers and so they just choose not to. For instance, unless you have $10M or more, you cannot walk into Zurich Kantonalbank (for instance) and open up a bank account. They don't want your money.
Is that not also true of Revolut and N26 and the other options in this thread - or are those all paypal clones that work differently than actual banks ?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...
I recommend Transferwise because they support ACH transfers and US$ balances.
What's the main USP of N26?
"N26 has had a full European banking licence since 2016 – and any funds you have with it are covered by the German Bank guarantee (up to €100,000)." [1]
[1] http://www.moneyguideireland.com/n26-compared-revolut.html
Genuinely interested ...
Businesses get a virtual account number at Standard Chartered.
Funds for personal accounts are held at Bank of China Hong Kong.
Both types of accounts get debit cards that ship globally.
I've signed up for a business account and been approved all online.
I think they exclude people from some countries.
Can try here: https://www.neat.hk/signup/start
That said, they either cost $10/month (commission or inactivity fee) unless you have a $100k balance with them.
[0]: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=7021
[1]: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1562
If you only want access to worldwide markets, you can probably do it with a local brokerage.
If you only want a worldwide account, the brokers in the market you want access to will often give you an account.
And they're not a bank, meaning your cash isn't insured. (Unless you reside in the USA, in which case you can get a proper bank account with FDIC insurance).
>We do not charge any account maintenance fee for any account that meets the following criteria: Greater than 100,000 USD in average equity for a calendar month or 10 USD in commissions generated in a calendar month.