American banks while living in DR

Scd02004 Member

18POSTS

6 years ago

Does anyone have experience keeping an American bank account (BOA, WellsFargo, Citibank, etc.) while living in Santo Domingo? If so, is it easy to maintain? How do you access your money without too many fees.

Thanks for any help!!

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Guest3265987 Guest

0POSTS

6 years ago

I know for personal experience that Scotiabank is the correspondent bank of BOA in DR and you can deposit and withdraw money from the Scotia's ATMs. However, Scotia is not so well advanced (technologically speaking) in terms of internet banking as Popular and BHD. For ex., if you are a Scotia client, you need to go to an branch to make a transfer abroad. In Popular, you set it up in you internet banking profile and you can do it from the peace of your house.

Better to go to one of the offices in order to decide which one fits your needs.

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ddmcghee Dominican Republic Expert

1970POSTS

6 years ago

We bank with Wells Fargo in the US, and will continue to have that as our primary bank. Our current plan is to wire money into our local USD account about every 6 months. We're having to pay $45 to Wells Fargo and $25 to our local bank (Banco Santa Cruz) for each international wire. It just doesn't make sense to do that on a more frequent schedule.

We then transfer from our USD to DOP account (Both at BSC) online for free. Our DOP account will be used for paying local bills and cash withdrawals.

Scd02004 Member

18POSTS

6 years ago

Thanks so much. This is great information. I didn’t know that separate local bank accounts were needed for RD and USD. That is great to keep in mind. And the fee at your local bank for the wire is good to know. I know about the one from Wells Fargo, but didn’t factor that extra fee in.

expatcapitalist Member

13POSTS

6 years ago

DDmchgee - You're paying WAY too much money. Since you have Wells Fargo just setup their Express send Global Remittance Services. $1500 per day up to around $30,000 a year $4 flat fee. To the original Poster you can send Money via transferwise very reasonable.

RockyM Serial expat

527POSTS

6 years ago

Wells Fargo sends that money in cash, similar to Western Union. So we would have to pick the cash up at another bank and transport it to our bank for deposit. That is ok for smaller amounts but if you are building a house for instance, like we are, direct deposit is needed (i.e. larger sums). Otherwise, it is worth it for week to week or such withdrawals.

ddmcghee Dominican Republic Expert

1970POSTS

6 years ago

expatcapitalist wrote:
DDmchgee - You're paying WAY too much money. Since you have Wells Fargo just setup their Express send Global Remittance Services. $1500 per day up to around $30,000 a year $4 flat fee. To the original Poster you can send Money via transferwise very reasonable.

That $30,000 would take 20 transfers at $1500 each. At $4 per transfer, that's $80. I could transfer $30,000 at once for $70 using the international wire service.

Which is best would depend on how you are using the funds and how often you want to transfer. Like RockyM (my hubby) said, we're building a home here, so we're dealing with more than $30k per year that Express Send allows.