Open a bank account in CR, while still in the U.S.

[soldier]

Greetings All,

I’m still conducting research for my pre-retirement to CR. Can anyone advise me if it is possible to open a bank account in CR, while I am still in the U.S.; for the purpose of purchasing a home; and living expenses. With the current banking climate, and the U.S. war on money laundering, I do not want to get in a negative situation; with either CR or the U.S. If an account in CR is possible, my thought is to deposit a sum each month until we purchase our home and relocate to CR. My other concern, would be the security of deposited amounts. I am not concerned about interest rates on the deposits; I will still maintain several accounts here in the U.S.

[costaricafinca]

Most banks will require paperwork that includes a mailing address, ie, a bill from ICE, etc. You will also need to show your passport.

[DavidCMurray]

Opening a new bank account here seems to have become a bureaucratic nightmare. It will be much worse if you try to do it from the U.S.

My first thought, other than to do it in person, is to do it in the name of a Costa Rican corporation. With a personna juridica, you’ll be on fairly firm footing.

My second thought is that you might have an easier time of it if you begin by being the customer of a bank that operates in the U.S. (or maybe a Canadian one). HSBC operates in Costa Rica and Scotiabank is, I believe, based in Canada. As a customer of one of these, you might have less trouble here in Costa Rica. We bank at HSBC where they voluntarily opened dollar and colon accounts for us when we got our mortgage. Other Americans have had to jump through lots of hoops and the process took forever.

[enduro]

Scotiabank is Canadian based (used to be called the Bank of Nova Scotia… a Canadian province…)

They now have affiliated ALL their world offices and you can get information here on Costa Rican Scotiabanks…

Website here is http://www.scotiabank.com

Costa Rica scotiabank is http://www.scotiabankcr.com

I bank with them here in Canada and they are very helpful… worth a look and see if it’s possible… I know they do have several different International accounts… Check out the correspondent Banking section… available at http://www.gtb.scotiabank.com

HTH

Brian

Edited on Sep 11, 2009 01:47

[soldier]

Thanks to everyone for your informative responses.

[billw888]

You might also look into opening an account with Banco de Costa Rica — though it is not an easy task. I say this because I think they are one of the only banks that allow you to automatically pay the phone bill and other utilities on line — if that figures into your plans.

[harvcarp]

Many of us who bank with BNCR pay phone bills, electric, cable, internet, vendors on line.

[DavidCMurray]

Unless billw888 is referring to a service where a utility bill is automatically deducted from an account, then there’s nothing unique about online banking in Costa Rican banks. We do that on HSBC’s website, too. And our Aerocasillas charges are directly debited from our HSBC colon account, so my guess is that almost any business or utility can arrange direct debiting for recurring bills.

Costa Rican banks also have a “SINPE” system that appears to be a means of making money transfers between banks. One might use this, for example, to transfer money from their account at ScotiaBank to an account at Banco Nacional to pay for an appliance or somesuch. Does anybody use this? Am I describing it correctly? What do we need to know?

[Cancertomnpdx]

I just opened a bank account in Orosi this past week. I ended up having to have four other documents notarized by my attorney to the tune of $60 plus I had to carry the originals of my documents for my corporation from the attorney’s office to the bank to be copied. Since I had the original of the approved filing, both my attorney were equally worried until I returned them to his office on Friday. He told me later none of the $60 notarized documents and the original document would have been necessary to open the same account in Cartago. At any rate, have five hours of waiting over two days, I have a bank account!

Thanks,
Tom in Portland on a budget!

[GringoTico]

Just remember, while the FDIC covers your deposits, up to $200,000, in all banks and S&Ls in the U.S., the Costa Rican government only insures deposits in State-owned banks, (BCR, BNCR, BCAC and BICSA). That said, I can’t remember a single private bank failure in CR over the last 25 years. Anyone else heard of one?

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