Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 121 posts

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#41

Post by kbumsik »

niklasrde wrote: post #37
kbumsik wrote: post #10

I'm not sure doing it online is particular useful in that case. As it takes at best a couple of days to receive the card you ordered, were you willing to be stuck at that place (or hotel) for days without the card? As a Korean student who have studied in America and England, I found Citibank useful enough in my case. Citibank is particular good at international personal banking services and they have branches across…

I can't comment on the worldwide aspect, but plenty of challenger banks allow you to add your card to your Apple Pay/Google Pay wallets immediately after account opening; without having to wait for the physical card.

Oh right. I might say it from the 7 years old point of view. But you should also consider that only a few countries support Apple Pay/Google Pay yet - Neither of them are available in Korea for example. And withdrawing cash is even harder with them.

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#42

Post by titanix2 »

rzvme wrote: post #13

I love N26. I use it everyday. It is free, great conversion rate etc. it even works with Apple Pay. I know I sound like a paid advertiser, but I swear I just love their service Some nice things: - you can pay with it during a flight, not possible with most of the online bank - depending on the country you can apply for overdraft - you can get cards that include different types of insurance, free withdrawals in any cu…

I tried N26 for a few month... before they close my account.

They require picture of two ID (which I gave during their outsourced identity verification process). Then a few month later someone noticed that the expiration date of my national ID card expired and send my a mail about redoing the ID check process. I told them it was unnecessary because the ID is still valid for 5 more year and gave them a link to the official government website explaining it. They pushed for the verification and swap the two piece during, except I couldn't do it because I was living abroad (the reason I opened an account in their bank in the first place) with just my passport. I withdraw all my money from the account two days before they lock it.

Lessons learned: 1. Their support is non-cooperative. 2. Their support don't care about the laws of your country concerning ID validity (even if EU). 3. They will lock and keep you money if they want. 4. Their ID check is outsourced and done by people not speaking good French/English. 5. They cannot swap the two ID by themselves in their database.

So keep care of this "bank" and don't put in it more money than you can afford to lose on their whim.

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#43

Post by inevrela »

N26 works the best. I have tried many banks, from Revolut, Bunq to many traditional banks (I have 7+ accounts).

N26 offers very nice desktop experience too. It's not an argument that you need to use your mobile – with EU requirements and MFA thingy going on, there are very few services where you are NOT required to use your phone (none in my experience!).

Revolut couldn't accept my salary, bc it was too much money turnover for them (due to their non-bank regulatory). N26 has super convenient customer support (chat, very fast in my experience!), plus you can deposit money in common stores...Flawless experience so far (1yr now, using for salary and everything – thousands of euros in and out, not a single problem). Revolut wants to be everything, but to me lacks of some seriousness – e.g. customer support sucks big time (in my direct experience), all these ads for crypto and stuff...N26 is like the older brother to Revolut.

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#44

Post by wdavidw »

rzvme wrote: post #13

I love N26. I use it everyday. It is free, great conversion rate etc. it even works with Apple Pay. I know I sound like a paid advertiser, but I swear I just love their service Some nice things: - you can pay with it during a flight, not possible with most of the online bank - depending on the country you can apply for overdraft - you can get cards that include different types of insurance, free withdrawals in any cu…

I’m a happy n26 for a little more than a year. I have one major issue which hasn’t yet been solved after 4 months now. They rejectected the wire of my dividends from my company to my personal bank account, asking for a document of justification. The support people are nice but none was able to tell me which documents they would accept despite me proposing them multiple options such as the official document voting the decision. I am currently in a situation with n26 where i love the service but i can’t get my money in.

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#45

Post by Cenk »

inevrela wrote: post #43

N26 works the best. I have tried many banks, from Revolut, Bunq to many traditional banks (I have 7+ accounts). N26 offers very nice desktop experience too. It's not an argument that you need to use your mobile – with EU requirements and MFA thingy going on, there are very few services where you are NOT required to use your phone (none in my experience!). Revolut couldn't accept my salary, bc it was too much money tu…

I’ve been using N26 for a couple years now, and I agree with almost everything you’ve said except the customer service part - it’ been unbearable slow for me, especially in emergencies. They don’t offer a hotline, for example, so when my credit card data was stolen and money taken from my account I spent 45 minutes in a little chat window in their app waiting for my turn. If you switch to another app, or your phone locks, or you lose your internet connection you lose your place in the queue. In the end they did do a chargeback on the money, it took about 6 weeks though and I had to get in touch with them multiple times.

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#46

Post by scrollaway »

dmichulke wrote: post #19
rzvme wrote: post #13

I love N26. I use it everyday. It is free, great conversion rate etc. it even works with Apple Pay. I know I sound like a paid advertiser, but I swear I just love their service Some nice things: - you can pay with it during a flight, not possible with most of the online bank - depending on the country you can apply for overdraft - you can get cards that include different types of insurance, free withdrawals in any cu…

Ex-customer here: Beware, N26 is not "mobile first", it's "mobile only". If you intend to use it without mobile phone or your mobile phone doesn't use the original Google Play services (e.g. due to LineageOS), then you can't confirm transactions and that makes it pretty useless.

Your statement about lineageos does not match my experience. I've been running lineageos and never had an issue like that.

Are you confusing transactions with Google pay support? The latter doesn't support rooted phones.

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#47

Post by bitcoinmoney »

inevrela wrote: post #43

N26 works the best. I have tried many banks, from Revolut, Bunq to many traditional banks (I have 7+ accounts). N26 offers very nice desktop experience too. It's not an argument that you need to use your mobile – with EU requirements and MFA thingy going on, there are very few services where you are NOT required to use your phone (none in my experience!). Revolut couldn't accept my salary, bc it was too much money tu…

How much is your salary ? Am curious to why a bank can’t accept it.,

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#48

Post by notahacker »

orf wrote: post #12

Revolut[1] seems perfect, I cannot recommend them enough. With their premium plan you get 1% cashback on all card purchases outside the EU as well. The support is great, if your card gets cloned or something. You also can fluidly and transparently transfer between all different currencies at the interbank rate, which I find is great for travelling back home (Most of my cash is in Euros). They are really, really good.…

One caveat about Revolut is that they do absolutely everything from topups to customer support through their mobile app. Which is great, until you want to top your card up to buy a new phone, or you have them both stolen from the same place.

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#49

Post by culturestate »

kbumsik wrote: post #41
niklasrde wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't comment on the worldwide aspect, but plenty of challenger banks allow you to add your card to your Apple Pay/Google Pay wallets immediately after account opening; without having to wait for the physical card.

Oh right. I might say it from the 7 years old point of view. But you should also consider that only a few countries support Apple Pay/Google Pay yet - Neither of them are available in Korea for example. And withdrawing cash is even harder with them.

In my experience (with a few exceptions), Apple Pay will work at nearly any merchant that accepts PayWave (obviously with a Visa card), even if Apple Pay hasn't landed in that country yet.

Re: Ask HN: Online banks where I can open account worldwide?

#50

Post by hocuspocus »

faebi wrote: post #3

My standard swiss banks always offered me to ship the replacement cards to anywhere in the world as long as I notify them how long I am in which country. I see no reason except cost-saving that an online bank shouldn‘t offer it.

However you need to be a resident to open an account, and at the very least keep a permanent address in Switzerland if you travel for extended period of times unless you're ready to pay outrageous fees as a non-resident. So this doesn't really answer OP's question.
Post reply on HN