Fubon bank opening procedure, citibank shines

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  1. #1

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    Fubon bank opening procedure, citibank shines

    Hi guys,

    following a recommendation here and the fact that they offer a visa debit card, I trundled out to central today to open an account. I took $5000, my passport, Id card and two bank statements as address proof.

    First, they would accept my hsbc offshore statement as it showed my initials and not my full name. Fortunately my boc statement did have it on there. They then decided that I needed a bank reference letter. No idea why and she couldn't tell me, but they insisted they couldn't d anything without one. I told her I'd never had any trouble before and showe her my account cards for various banks. She then wanted a copy of those to. Twenty minutes later, she's back and says she still needs a reference letter. This is after over an hour of waitng and filling in forms. She then says she will destroy my application and copies and I should come back when I have the reference letter...

    So I walked a few shops down and went into citibank to ask for a reference letter. They said they could do one but it wouldn't be ready until Monday. I explained the situation and they did some calling around. Suffice it to say, I left with my custom reference letter 15 minutes later!

    I'm still sat in fubon bank waitng for them to process the application. I don't know why all the hassle, but just be aware that if you go to open an account, you might get asked for this... If only citi had a debit card....
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  2. #2

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    MXZ - Can you autopay your citi card with your account in Citi?


  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by shri:
    MXZ - Can you autopay your citi card with your account in Citi?
    Hi Shri,

    unfortunately I don't have the paperwork to get a credit card. All my work has been offshore so no direct deposit or hk contract. I have an hsbc credit card but that means maintaining a $50k balance earning no interest whilst paying interest on my 'borrowing'.

    Had they not demanded a reference letter, it would have been relatively painless at fubon...
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  4. #4

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    Turns out that in their terms and conditions that can require a reference:


    2.1.3 : Provide references and copies thereof, in a form acceptable to Fubon.

    As I said, I was lucky that citibank were willing to help me out - would have sucked to have gone all the way to Central early on a Saturday and after an hour of waiting to luck out...


  5. #5

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    Funny, I didn't have to do that.


  6. #6

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    Yeah, I told them that I had been recommended to them and they first wanted a reference from the person doing the recommendation...

    Unfortunately they would only say "Oh we need it because the bank needs more information.". The issue is that it cost me $200HK to get citibank to write them a bloody reference. I would have hit the roof if they'd then asked for something else :-)

    I must have looked particularly unworthy today. True I need a haircut but so far, no bank has ever turned away my money :-)

    Now I just have to wait ten working days for my card to turn up...


  7. #7

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    I think a key difference may have been that bookblogger is a long time Permanent Resident,


  8. #8

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    Ah, could be.