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Several months ago, we opened a Ltda. corporate bank account in colones and dollars with BCT. We currently do not have a card from that bank. I am not sure whether that would be a debit or credit card. We are considering obtaining a card, for store purchases, etc., when we vacation and when we live in CR full time. Can any members provide any insight into the CR bank card, and, whether there is any benefit or disadvantage to having the card?
I see no advantage to having a Costa Rican [u]credit[/u] card. A recent newspaper article reported that interest rates run from twenty to over fifty percent per year. What U.S. credit card can’t beat that?
Your U.S. credit cards (VISA and MasterCard, anyway) will be as universally accepted here as a domestic one. For as long as you have a means of paying the bill each month, you can use those with no disadvantage.
What would be convenient, however, would be to have a Costa Rican debit card that you can use to get colones from the ATMs and pay for purchases from your BCT accounts here.
My bank debit card (Banco de Costa Rica) requires monthly use
or they cancel it and you have to show up at the bank to renew it.Yeah, we had a similar experience with Banco Nacional three years or so ago when they deactivated our card for non-use. We’re with HSBC now, so it doesn’t matter.
Just received an email from our BCT representative in Costa Rica. BCT does not have a debit card to link to our colones account. How difficult would it be if we decided to open and transfer our current Ltda. dollars and colones from BCT; to HSBC? Will our CR attorney and we have to go through another dog-and-pony show, to get another Ltda. colones and dollars account with HSBC, for a debit card?
soldier, before you go to extreme measures, just try putting your BCT debit card into any ATM here in Costa Rica and ask to withdraw c10,000 more than your current colon account balance. In the case of our HSBC accounts, at least, if we don’t have enough in the colon account to cover the withdrawal, the system automatically converts some dollars to colones and dispenses them.
Failing that, one of the customer service folks at HSBC in Grecia told me yesterday that they’d open accounts for non-resident foreigners with a copy of your passport, and proof of the source of your income. Were it mine to do, I’d bring a letter of reference from my U.S. bank, two years of income tax returns, six months of statements from that U.S. bank, a local personal reference letter, and maybe a urine sample (kidding . . .just kidding).
Because we manage a rental for friends, we actually have two dollar accounts and two colon accounts so we can keep their funds segregated from ours. These are all under one master account at HSBC.
David,
Thanks for your response. The BCT bank does not offer a debit card at this time. They do offer a credit card, however, we must make another substantial separate deposit, just to obtain it. And, as you correctly mentioned in your previous post, there is a high interest rate. If I am not mistaken, previous member posts indicated that we can use our U.S. credit cards for MACs and purchases in Costa Rica? As an option, if possible, I would probably use one of two of our U.S. credit cards, with current interest rates of 6.0% each.
You certainly can use your U.S. bank credit and debit cards (VISA and MasterCard, at least (I’m not sure about Discover, American Express, etc)) to pay for purchases here and to get money from the ATMs. Just two things . . .
First, be sure to tell your U.S. bank that you’ll be using your cards in Costa Rica and when.
Second, check with them about their fees.
What’s a MAC?
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