Banking Internationally

Good luck is all I can say. It starts from the day you walk into the bank and try to open a bank account. You would think that you are asking for gold ( and tons of it). You almost have to offer your first born for the privilege of setting up an account and letting the bank use your money to earn interest. I wrote in an earlier post how to send money home by bank
transfer so this time I will talk about credit cards and things of that nature.

Credit cards are an amazing things, especially if you have money in the bank but unfortunately the issuing bank can and does arbitrarily block the card because something is triggered in their computer that tells the bank someone is using the card somewhere that they should not be using. Remember that when you go away to teach for a year at a time, inform the bank that you could be using the card in any country, especially if you do not want to be embarrassed in some hotel and restaurant when the bill comes! I have had my cards blocked many times and now they have written in their computer " travels a lot!"


I have spent hours on the phone with the issuing bank and there are numerous problems with this. First of all, if you are in Asia day is night and night is day so good luck trying to get anyone. on the phone. Secondly it is very expensive and you are only using your verbal language of communication. You will quickly discover that most of our communication happe with withs non verbally. 

There are few things that money can't buy like this beautiful sunset, but for most things you will need your credit card. Also be advised that in a lot of Asian countries the bank you deal with your salary with, will only issue you a credit card for use in country of origin. If you want to use your credit card abroad you have to specifically ask for one that is designed for that purpose and it will likely cost you a few dollars!