Can't deposit cash into my account?

raymerjacque wrote:

You cannot deposit from a bank to paypal in vietnam....

You can withdraw from paypal to bank.

Is your Paypal account in VN a business account. Their website asks for bank account details in the business name.

no, not a business account. just a normal account. After i created the account i verified it, once that was done, i added my BIDV bank card, and then i added my BIDV bank account.  ( your paypal account name MUST be the same as your name is listed on your bank account else it will not link, i remember i initially had issues with the name not being the same, but paypal fixed that for me same day. I also remember i had to send copy of my passport to paypal, they requested it. this was 2 years ago  ).

So i can use paypal to pay for items and it will pull money from my BIDV account or card ( i have bought many items on ebay using my paypal and it pulls the cash from my BIDV account ), and i can withdraw from paypal to my BIDV bank account. it works both ways. I can also transfer money from my South African paypal to my Vietnamese Paypal or from Vietnam Paypal to SA Paypal.

Now they request a bank account in a business name according to the link you sent. Maybe PayPal changed the rules.

well, it was 2 years ago. So maybe its changed since then or maybe thats why they requested my passport. i dont really remember. All i know is i was told by paypal that i needed to open a vietnam paypal, which i did. Then i got stuck linking my bank account, but paypal helped me through that process as well and after that everything worked just fine.

The problem with paypal is their fees.  I wanted my paypal to be in US$ (even my Vietnam one, due to payments in US$ by AirBNB and others).  Then, I found that Paypal will NOT deposit US$ into my US$ bank account at Vietcombank or OCB.  They say the law requires them to put it into my VND account, and they take a ridiculous exchange fee (looks like almost 5%) when they do that.  I am not ok with a 5% fee just to put MY money into MY account.  If it was between unrelated parties, well that **might** be a bit different. 

Regardless, I found an amazing work around using a new US based banking service. No exchange cost between any currencies worldwide.   I won't broadcast it here, since I do not want to be promotional in the forum.  But if anyone wants to use it just send me a private message and I will share it. 

Basically, it would be good to avoid Paypal completely so if anyone has other options to bring money in and out of Vietnam (which sounds a lot like money laundering, but its not since its my money!) please let us all know.

This is not an endorsement, just a sharing of facts: 

My BoA Travel Rewards doesn't have annual fee, doesn't charge foreign transaction fees, comes with never-expired points (between 10% and 75% of purchases.)  Points can be used for miles or hotels, but I mostly use them as cash back ($60 towards last month's payment.)  I've been using it for years in Europe, Asia, North and South America, and online transactions everywhere.

My daughter banks with First Republic.  No foreign transaction fee, plus ATM withdrawal fees are refunded from other banks worldwide.

Ciambella wrote:

This is not an endorsement, just a sharing of facts: 

My BoA Travel Rewards doesn't have annual fee, doesn't charge foreign transaction fees, comes with never-expired points (between 10% and 75% of purchases.)  Points can be used for miles or hotels, but I mostly use them as cash back ($60 towards last month's payment.)  I've been using it for years in Europe, Asia, North and South America, and online transactions everywhere.

My daughter banks with First Republic.  No foreign transaction fee, plus ATM withdrawal fees are refunded from other banks worldwide.

What bank / country are these cards from?

Both BofA (Bank of America) and First Republic are US banks, although the last time we were in Torronto, I saw a BofA building in the name Banque d'Amérique du Canada.

A: don't worry, you can transfer funds by regular wire. I've done it countless times . Yesterday, I managed to deposit 26 M, no questions asked. (In the past, this required the contract to show sources of funds). *** Today, I am told that I will get the contract.

WU does bank accounts, but alas, they insist on cash, rather shady if you ask me 

FYI, I managed to withdraw cash with my cc at Vietin Bank for a 4% flat rate fee (10 M). The nonsense at ATMs with the 2M limit? No, thank you. With your VIETCOM BANK having the lowest fees I found.

Chris

I have called at Vietcom,HSBC and BIDV banks and cannot deposit cash.
Before I arrived in Vietnam I transferred money from the Uk to my Vietnamese wife,s account here in Hcmc.None of the banks will allow a transfer of money from her account to a account opened in my name without" documents" where the money has originated....which I do not have.
Absolutely pathetic situation
Ok ...it is more accountable for tax purposes but this situation encourages illegal activity also .

China is the same, I think most of Asia is the same... They do not make it easy to manage money for foreigners...

hs0zfe wrote:

A: don't worry, you can transfer funds by regular wire. I've done it countless times . Yesterday, I managed to deposit 26 M, no questions asked. (In the past, this required the contract to

Yes I understand that, but wire is expensive!  My goal is always to move money around almost for free - no big fees, no stupid currency exchange rip offs, etc.  Its all electronic - why should we have to pay huge fees or have big hassles?  I don't accept it.

Gareth Uk wrote:

I have called at Vietcom,HSBC and BIDV banks and cannot deposit cash.
...
Ok ...it is more accountable for tax purposes but this situation encourages illegal activity also .

it also encourages people (visitors, expats, etc) to travel or live with large amounts of cash on them.  That is ridiculous and unsafe.  Anyway, I now have a perfect (basically free) workaround.... and so finally I am out of this mess. VN should change their bank rules on this.  It is stupid.

Exactly! I mean I pay about 30€ (not dollars!) in fees every single time I transfer money to my landlord for rent + I pay 6$ every time I withdraw 2.000.000 VDN. That's about twice a week. 48$/month + the rent transfer that nearly 100$ just for fees. Not acceptable.

j_jrules wrote:

Exactly! I mean I pay about 30€ (not dollars!) in fees every single time I transfer money to my landlord for rent + I pay 6$ every time I withdraw 2.000.000 VDN. That's about twice a week. 48$/month + the rent transfer that nearly 100$ just for fees. Not acceptable.

Can you get a VN bank account, it will save a lot in fees.

I've opened an account with timo, all done online then you go into the shop and get your card on the same day. It's a division of VP bank and for transferring money to other Vietnamese accounts there's no charge or anything like that. Doesn't cost anything so is a complete no brainer.

I use globalwebpay to move money from abroad into Vietnam, cost £1 per transaction so its a lot more cost effective than using your foreign account to get money out.

Wow thanks for sharing that!

j_jrules wrote:

Exactly! I mean I pay about 30€ (not dollars!) in fees every single time I transfer money to my landlord for rent + I pay 6$ every time I withdraw 2.000.000 VDN. That's about twice a week. 48$/month + the rent transfer that nearly 100$ just for fees. Not acceptable.

I've got good news for you. Check out the ATM fees at VIETCOM BANK. I found those much lower (20,000 d but that was last year).

You can go and make a withdrawal with your passport and take out like 10,000.000 d at a time inside a branch. That 2 M limit is most annoying.
...
Amounts of less than $ 1,000 shouldn't be treated like the proceeds from the sale of a house.

RCrash wrote:

hs0zfe wrote:

A: don't worry, you can transfer funds by regular wire. I've done it countless times . Yesterday, I managed to deposit 26 M, no questions asked. (In the past, this required the contract to

Yes I understand that, but wire is expensive!  My goal is always to move money around almost for free - no big fees, no stupid currency exchange rip offs, etc.  Its all electronic - why should we have to pay huge fees or have big hassles?  I don't accept it.

HSBC UK charges 4 GBP per wire - not sure about the cost at the Vietnamese end. Make sure to  o n l y  send GBP or else you will encounter "forex hell". They are shameless in ripping off customers with their exchange rate "deals". 

VN friends told me about a "we ship" website allowing Ebay purchases. And TBH, I do want to ask locals to make payments on my behalf with their VISA cards. Going to the bank is no longer appealing. Even though I succeeded in getting a wire sent vs the usual "Western Union" cash nonsense.

Just to revert back to my earlier point RE GlobalWebPay & Timo - with GWP you process the transaction, then pay for it, if you don't pay for it, it doesn't happen is the best way of looking at it. Best way to do it is, once you've checked out, pay for the transfer with your debit card :- Make sure the beneficiary name is the one that matches your passport & visa (not initials, I made that mistake) and its transferred over within 24hrs.

Can't really go wrong, Timo is great as well, you can pay your bills on here, you just type in your customer reference number and it brings up your outstanding Water, electric, Internet bills so on and so forth. Its so easy. If anyone has any questions more than happy to help.

And no, I don't work for either of these firms, I'm just incredibly happy with the services and feel like people should know about them.

I tried to sign up with GlobalWebPay but it appears you need to be a UK resident. Great solution IF you are a UK resident.

For me there are more advantages than disadvantages to have a Vietnamese bank account.

I pay about VND 24k per month for a Vietnamese bank account with VISA card and e-banking.
I can tranfer money to another Vietnamese bank account up to VND 500M per day.
I can withdraw money at ATMs up to VND 10M a day for a fee of VND 1k.
I can pay up to VND 50M per day by the VISA card.
I can transfer CHF from my Swiss bank account to my Vietnamese VND bank account (automatically convert). The fee is CHF 24 (OUR (sender pays costs)) independent of the amount. Only if you tranfer small amount the fee of CHF 24 is high.
The currency rate fluctuation is a big deal if your home country bank accounts are not in US$. For example, during the last 5 months the CHF-VND change from about VND 24'000 to VND 22'000 and back to VND 24'000. In case you transfer about 1 Billion Dong, you could lose or win a lot of money (this is more important than the fees).
Therefore I am thinking about to open an US$ bank account. Then I can tranfer from VND to US$ account depening on the currency. 

I have additional to the Vietnamese bank account a saving book with a interest of between 4.5% and 7.3% (depending on how much you withdraw the interest).

The only disadvantages I experenced is that there are problems to transfer money without complicate declarations from my wife's account to my account, as some other expats already post here.

I have also a non-Vietnamese (DKB) VISA card without fee.
But the Vietnamese ATM fees you must pay anyway (between VND 20'000 to 60'000).
Only the HSCB ATMs don't charge this fee if I use the DKB VISA card.

But some weeks ago, my wallet was stolen and I lost all credit cards.
And you can believe me, I was more than happy to have a Vietnamese bank account in this situation. 3 days later I got my new VISA card.

This thread is about problems expats have depositing cash into Vietnam banks.

lagunacat wrote:

This thread is about problems expats have depositing cash into Vietnam banks.

Indeed. However you can feel free to give me as much as you want and I'll deposit the full amount to my account 

A quick reply regarding cash deposit in a foreign currency, let's say you want to open a USD account and drop some cash there.

I've been to many banks these days, here's what you'll encounter, from the most common to the less common:
- staff dont speak English, cant do nothing for you.
- staff speaks enough English, but have no idea what to do with you. Especially true if you don't have a work permit: you sit in a grey area of an even grayer regulation. Most staff will politely tell you that they can't accept your cash, but the truth is that they simply have no clue, and coffee break is coming, so they can't wait to see you out.
- staff speaks English, and are used to deal with foreigners. Even though, they'll tell you that they can't accept cash from foreigners. At this point, you show them the little card from the custom, because you declared your cash when you entered VN, so you have this little card, right?

You will learn that this little card from the custom is valid for 60 days or 30 days, depending on the bank/teller you're talking to.

So after you found some staff that has enough English, is cooperative and qualified, and you showed them the magic card from the custom, things might happen. You might be able to deposit your cash in a bank account, rather than keeping it under your mattress.

Even though, your quest is not finished yet. Let me drift off-topic a bit here.

First, as far as I know, foreign banks won't give you an account unless you have a work permit (or maybe if you already have an account with them in another country). Tried a few times. The staff doesn't even know, so they tell you no problem, just come back with your passport. Then you're back and they tell you no problem, just come back with a proof of residency. Then you're back a third time, and they ask you where's your work permit. But you've been telling them from the very beginning that you don't have a work permit, right? Who cares. "So sorry, we can not".

So anyway, you can try it by yourself, but it seems to me that foreign banks have limitations that local banks don't have. So I suggest you go to local banks instead.

Next thing, every bank has different weird conditions, like:
- your debit card is in fact an ATM card, you can't use it to pay online
- you have VND and USD account, but you can't transfer from USD to VND?
- you have VND account, but you can't do transfers, hence you can't pay your rent, electricity bill, or send money to someone?
- many many more paper cuts await...

Many details can and will go wrong, and leave you with a crippled bank account, ie. you'll have to waste hours of your life at a local branch every time you need to do X or Y., because you're not allowed to do it through Internet banking.

Another possibility is that you'll find out that their internet banking (website or app) comes straight out of middle-age. If the're not able to maintain and update their user-facing technologies, how do you think they handle their server and infrastructure? Chances are that they use outdated technologies crippled with security holes. Maybe you're not interested in these technical details and you don't care, but I do.

Thing is, you have no chance to know in advance about these details. You can ask everything at the counter before opening  the account, but questions are cheap, and the answers are even cheaper, to the point they're worth nothing. Only when you have the bank account opened you'll find out what works and what does not.

So what I do these days is that I open various bank accounts and try it, as much as I can. What I don't do is deposit all my cash in the first bank that is OK to take it. Because if I find out afterwards that the account is unusable due to some silly limitations, what's the point? BTW some banks want to keep the card from the custom when you deposit. If you agree, then you lose this precious card, and with it the ability to deposit your cash in another bank, if the need arise. So you'd better think twice if you don't want to give yourself more headache.

So I don't have the perfect solution, but my only advise so far would be: visit headquarters in district 1, that's where you have the most chance to be in contact with qualified tellers with a decent English, and that's key to success. Local branches in your neighborhood, unless you speak VN, are a waste of time. Depositing foreign cash IS allowed, you just need to meet the teller that knows the regulation, and is in the mood for work today.

Good luck

There is a really easy and simple solution.  Follow these steps and you should be able to deposit money without a work permit or residence card and still be able to buy online as well.

1. Open a Timo Account ( timo is now in all major Vietnam cities, just search google maps for nearest one ), with Timo you can deposit directly into the ATM, i don't think there is a limit as i have deposited between 20 and 30 million all at once many times right at the ATM, and it reflects in your account within seconds. You bypass having to deal with bank staff.... Timo uses a mobile app, you can literally do everything from the app in terms of managing your account. However, the Timo bank card will only work inside vietnam.

2. Open a local bank account, at BIDV or SACOM or HSBC or whichever bank you prefer and whichever one will give you a visa or master debit card, just try a few, some of them do.

3. Deposit your money into timo at the ATM, and use the app to EFT transfer to your local account ( clears within a minute or so ), now you can shop online with the debit card....

This way you deposit and with draw and do everything yourself, no need to even deal with the banks except when you first open your accounts. This is the method i used to use back when i was still on a Tourist visa...  There are of course going be quite a few charges with all the transferring and so forth, but it works and its better then nothing...

@raymerjacque thanks for sharing your tip, but can you deposit foreign currencies in Timo?

No. Only local.

No, you take your currency to your exchange of choice ( gold dealer, bank, whomever) then Goto a vpbank ATM with your Timo card, the machine opens and you stack the càsh into it. No 1k/2k/5k bills, only larger denominations. The machine counts and deposits into your Timo instantly. There is a VP bank a few hundred metres from the Timo "hangout" on pasteur. Get card at the hangout, Goto VP bank, exchange, dump into ATM inside the bank onto Timo.

Hi,

I am currently planning on traveling to Saigon, planning to go and venture it out for 3 months first so I will be on a 3 months multi entry visa.

I am planning to open a bank here in my country ( Singapore ) either HSBC, UOB, Bank of China, Citibank, Standard Chartered and use my local Internet banking to travel funds around and make withdrawal in Vietnam using either 1 of the bank stated above.

Will that be able to work and am I able to make cash deposit into the banks stated above or I should open a local vietnamese bank to ensure I wont encounter any issue as many of you have stated.

Thanks,
Delon

jpbsimpson wrote:

All very well and good if you are a tourist for a short time or actuall;y employed in Vietnam. I am, and many others are, married to Vietnamese, living in Vietnam, not working in Vietnam (as in working elsewhere or retired), and can still NOT put cash into our bank accounts! The casino development in Vietnam has stagnated from the fact that no more than US$5,000 can be legally taken out of the country at a time in cash, the cash won at the casino can NOT be deposited in a bank account in Vietnam ergo why would the high rollers come to Vietnam to gamble when they can avoid all of these restrictions in Cambodia, Macau etc.? A modicum of common sense would help if the government want to dectect illegal money but the present system is just too resrictive for ordinary people.

What an entertaining thread.
Who knew it could be so exciting trying to deposit money in the bank.

For those fighting so hard to deposit money, has it ever occurred to you that it may be even harder to get it back out?

Food for thought as we say back home.

@raymerjacque this Timo thing looks really great. Thank you for sharing it.  I had no idea about it despite 2 years in VN. I am back next week and will open account right away.
@Wxx3 withdrawals (large amounts, or US$) are not easy. Wiring is not easy. However, the emphasis seems to be on depositing (source of cash issues - crime).  Once in, its yours and in the end you seem to be able to do as you wish, sometimes after hours of form filling, stamping, more forms, and more stamping.  Its 1952 banking at its best in VN.  Hilarious. Bring lunch and a good movie to watch while banking. 
@delontwj you will be hit with fees if using a foreign bank account and local ATMs.  Check this very carefully with your home bank before you do it.  Keep in mind that you can bring piles of cash in as long as you declare it at customs.  They will give you a paper (of course, with many stamps and lots of signatures and more stamps and more signatures)  which you need to deposit the cash at a local bank (US$, not your home currency and of course not VN dong, which you would not have anyway).  Then you can use local atm card to take it out.  When you leave, drain the account and it will disappear after a few months.

I've only ever had 1 bank account here and it was opened years ago. BUT I have been getting small deposits from friends. Say, I bring over deodorant for only 15 k. They get 10 bottles and reimburse me 180 k (with sh&h). No problem!

One friend reported Vietin Bankdoesn't allow the deposit, making me post here. Turnsout, she omitted a "0" in my account number.

Only yesterday, 775 k were deposited successfully.

BUT there might have been i. changes in the rules and ii. it might vary from bank to bank?

Starting 5th of July, 2019, Timo requires foreigners to have a 1 year visa to open a bank account.

https://timo.vn/en/blog/regulations-for-foreigners/

https://vietnamnews.vn/economy/522683/f … QVV75ya.97

FYI

Rick

Budman1 wrote:

https://vietnamnews.vn/economy/522683/foreigners-still-permitted-to-make-term-deposits-at-vietnamese-banks.html#KHytVudkgQVV75ya.97

FYI

Rick

As usual, noting is set in stone here.

Yup - I can confirm this new requirement. I slipped in under the wire it seems.  I will have another 2 year paper this week so its not a problem for me, but it closes the door for most of the people reading this stream.  In July, I got an email saying they need me to update my paperwork, and they stopped me from making term deposits until I do.   Everything else still works fine.  But its a bummer.  Timo has been really great so far.  I like that you can actually deposit CASH at a machine.  Weird, but useful.  I sold a bike once and the bank would not take the cash.  Had to do a stupid workaround, which of course is always possible here.