Singapore Expats

Is the use or accumulation of bitcoin frowned upon in Singapore, and if not, has anyone bothered with it? Also, has any US citizen had trouble opening a bank account due to FATCA?

1. Not as far as I know.
2. I'm not sure what FATCA is but yes, US citizens are having a LOT of trouble opening up new accounts (esp if they don't have any previous banking in Singapore). Standard Chartered is about the only one I know of that is US friendly at the moment.

Yes, the problems are all because of Fatca. Or should I say, the damned idiot in the Whitehouse.

PNGMK wrote:1. Not as far as I know.
2. I'm not sure what FATCA is but yes, US citizens are having a LOT of trouble opening up new accounts (esp if they don't have any previous banking in Singapore). Standard Chartered is about the only one I know of that is US friendly at the moment.

Thanks. I had heard something about a Bank of Siam being American friendly. Are there any other small local banks or "credit unions" as they are called here? And does Singapore have an equivalent to the FDIC?

CitizenOfTheWorld wrote:

PNGMK wrote:1. Not as far as I know.
2. I'm not sure what FATCA is but yes, US citizens are having a LOT of trouble opening up new accounts (esp if they don't have any previous banking in Singapore). Standard Chartered is about the only one I know of that is US friendly at the moment.

Thanks. I had heard something about a Bank of Siam being American friendly. Are there any other small local banks or "credit unions" as they are called here? And does Singapore have an equivalent to the FDIC?

Bank of Siam may not actually be able to offer retail services in Singapore. Maybank is about the smallest local bank with full retail AFAIK.

There are some local credit unions (Hong Leong for example) but they don't really do retail deposits - mainly loans.

Yes - there is insurance on bank deposits - I think currently $50,000 per aggregated account per bank.

PNGMK wrote:Bank of Siam may not actually be able to offer retail services in Singapore. Maybank is about the smallest local bank with full retail AFAIK.

Bank of Siam, used to issue local checks, years ago, which you can deposit into any DBS/POSB account, and was issued on SGD, and cashed as such .. so I don't know your explanation of Full Retail Bank

And FYI, there are banks with much and much lesser presence than Maybank, having Full retail license, like UCO .. ICICI, and a few more .. issue SGD checks, cash SGD Checks, under the CTS network

ecureilx wrote:

PNGMK wrote:Bank of Siam may not actually be able to offer retail services in Singapore. Maybank is about the smallest local bank with full retail AFAIK.

Bank of Siam, used to issue local checks, years ago, which you can deposit into any DBS/POSB account, and was issued on SGD, and cashed as such .. so I don't know your explanation of Full Retail Bank

And FYI, there are banks with much and much lesser presence than Maybank, having Full retail license, like UCO .. ICICI, and a few more .. issue SGD checks, cash SGD Checks, under the CTS network

Full Retail = where everything you want in banking is under one roof. ANZ for example claim they are full retail but to me not really... sometimes you still have to work around. Somewhere I found a list of full retail banks years ago and that was what I had in mind.

Edit: To me, actually full retail means completely integrated into Singapore monetary system including NETS (IMHO only). Even Maybank fail this. Licence means nothing to consumer, what matters to them in retail terms is what they can do with bank. All those banks you list have limited branches, limited hours, limits of facilities etc.

http://www.scb.co.th/overseas/en/ovs/ovs_sng.html definitely not retail.

PNGMK wrote:Full Retail = where everything you want in banking is under one roof. ANZ for example claim they are full retail but to me not really... sometimes you still have to work around. Somewhere I found a list of full retail banks years ago and that was what I had in mind.

well, for arguement sake, from MAS perspective, there are full retail banks which don't meet your yardstick

Now take those Indian banks, they accept SGD cheques, let customers issue SGD Cheques, which get cashed by any other Full Retail bank, DBS, OCBC, UOB .. as you would cash any local check, using CTS, next day clearence, without any additional fee .. and some large indian merchants use them, just for clearing cheques, handling LCs etc.

Nets ? NETS is a consortium and participating in NETS is an option .. from what I know .. as there are charges involved + costs for the bank .. so they may or may not decide to participate, if you have insufficient clients.

Back to ATM ? re: ANZ, well, ATM 5 has ANZ as a participating bank .. so they have more shared ATMs ..

BTW, Wikipedia has an incomplete list here ..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ba ... Full_banks