bank accounts

vicshere says on Aug 19, 2008, 14:14:

there's a law???

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Gator says on Aug 19, 2008, 14:24:

Since your wife is from Bogotá put her up front.

"Bene, cum Latine nescias, nolo manus meas in te maculare" .

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Gator says on Aug 19, 2008, 19:13:

Then go with Citibank International in NYC and use ATM's. The only requirement I know of by law is you produce "positive"identification, either a passport or a Colombian cédula. But the bank can require anything additional it choses and there is NO law requiring an institution to open an account. The penalty for "money laundering" against a financial institution in Colombia is quire severe.

"Bene, cum Latine nescias, nolo manus meas in te maculare" .

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Noelito40 says on Aug 19, 2008, 23:28:

Gator/Vicshere are right, there is no law, it's a crap shoot purely down to the vagaries of who you get on the day in the bank (and even then a few days later someone in the same bank will phone you and tell you your account request has been refused)

There is some hope though, assuming your wife is Colombian and assuming that you have a cedula de extranjeria, get a member of her family to vouch for you. i.e get one of them to make a personal introduction on your behalf to a bank, and the bank will look more favourably on your request. I was turned down by 3 banks before my wife's cousin gave us a personal "character reference" with Banco de Credito and I had my account within a day.

Aso, although my wife has some entitlements on the account, I am the account owner and thus primary signatory (I suspect I am in the same boat as you, married to a Colombian citizen, thus I have a visa conjugal and a cedula de extranjeria).

With banco de credito I transferred a relatively large sum of euros into Colombia to this account and have had no trouble opening CDT´s/current account with it.

Also, soon after arriving in Colombia I opened an account in my name in Davivienda (with my Irish passport!) and again no problems, but it was my wife's local branch, so the personal introduction rule was the same. With this account I transferred in about 20million to buy a car and again no problems on the Colombian banking side (granted I wrote a letter identifying the source and purpose of the funds transfer)

Finally, another option is to open an account with an investment house (I opened one no problem in www.correval.com) Correval doesn't have a retail side however so may not work for daily banking but for larger investments may do the job.

Hope this helps

Noelito

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calipro says on Aug 20, 2008, 05:17:

Did you open your correval account in person or can you do it online?

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jonas says on Aug 20, 2008, 06:07:

calipro yeah right, open your accounts in Colombia online, use your PBH login as a reference and you shall have no problem.

Mi alma se la dejo al diablo

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calipro says on Aug 20, 2008, 06:35:

Take it easy jonas.

I don't know about using my PBH login as a reference but maybe I could use my Colombia Bank account and cedula as a reference.

And, You might be able to use a fake cedula to get your under age girlfriends in a decent night club. jijij

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Noelito40 says on Aug 20, 2008, 16:01:

Calipro...I had to go in person to the Bogota office. Standard info required, cedula, proof of origin of funds etc...I can track my transactions online but can't do much else.

I've been with then a few months now and am very happy with them. They give the best rates on CDT's (that I've seen) and when you talk to their traders they know what they are talking about (a pleasant change from most of the high street banks). I also invested in some shares and although they've gone down rather than up that's just market forces.

I also like the fact that if I need a cheque they deliver it to my house (with Banco de Credito I have to go to my branch). I'm in Bogota though, if you're in Cali, not so sure...

One annoying thing is that I have to fax all iinstructions as they need to be signed, so email not acceptable, but neither is a scanned/signed document?

One last thing is that I opened my account with them after I had transferred money to Colombia (so got hit for the 4 por mil) and when I talked with them they said I could have avoided/minimised my exposure to this... (Can't exactly remember the circumstances but talk to them)

Noelito

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