Open An Account At Citibank Savings In Cebu

[Mr Lee]

My wife and I just took the lady from Citibank Savings who happens to be a friend of our now, out to lunch and we discussed bank accounts and she said that she would be able to open an account for a Filipina who has an address here in the Philippines without a tax identification number as long as she can be listed as a housewife, has two id's and a local address. If anyone has a question to ask her, she is a very nice lady and has always gone above and beyond for us when we needed help with banking issues, but she still cannot open an account for none Filipinos that do not live in PI and have ACR cards. If you are a non Filipino and have an ACR card and some bills to prove you live in the Philippines, then she can or should be able to open an account for you.Her name is Karina Villegas-Locsin, she is the Relationship manager at the Cebu Osmena Branch and her work number is 32 256 2698 or 3618 and her email address at the bank is karina.locsin@citi.com

Edited March 22, 2009 by Mr. Lee

[tom_shor]

So why can other banks do so?

[Mr Lee]

So why can other banks do so?

Local banks seem to be under a different standard than an international bank. The international bank might be held to a higher standard from what the bank reps tell me. The rules and laws in the Philippines are left open for interpretation and different banks are much more cautious how they want to interpret them, and that may be because they have lawyers from first world countries that read them as they would in their own countries rather than how they are read in the PI. Anyway, I was not able to open an account for myself in all the years we had been coming back and forth until recently and Citi here still does not want me on our accts because I do not have an ACR card but the govt allows me to stay a year at a time with a Balikbayan privilege, but BPI and a few other big banks here who are also so strict welcomes me to have accounts in my name with open arms, so go figure. I also think large amounts of money do not impress banks like Citi, while they do many other banks here and as I said in another post, money talks here and rules can be broken if you have enough money to make the bank want you bad enough. One problem that I know is, that the banks have a hard time reporting interest income on accounts that do not have a tax number attached to them, and that makes sense, so if you have an ACR card, then they can report them on the accompanying numbers issued to you.

[Markham]

So why can other banks do so?

Local banks seem to be under a different standard than an international bank. The international bank might be held to a higher standard from what the bank reps tell me. The rules and laws in the Philippines are left open for interpretation and different banks are much more cautious how they want to interpret them, and that may be because they have lawyers from first world countries that read them as they would in their own countries rather than how they are read in the PI. Anyway, I was not able to open an account for myself in all the years we had been coming back and forth until recently and Citi here still does not want me on our accts because I do not have an ACR card but the govt allows me to stay a year at a time with a Balikbayan privilege, but BPI and a few other big banks here who are also so strict welcomes me to have accounts in my name with open arms, so go figure. I also think large amounts of money do not impress banks like Citi, while they do many other banks here and as I said in another post, money talks here and rules can be broken if you have enough money to make the bank want you bad enough. One problem that I know is, that the banks have a hard time reporting interest income on accounts that do not have a tax number attached to them, and that makes sense, so if you have an ACR card, then they can report them on the accompanying numbers issued to you.

Ah, but Lee, can you deposit Pesos into those accounts? It is a Central Bank dictat that only Filipinos or foreigners with ACR-I cards are permitted the so-called "full service" accounts and only resident citizens can have a locally-issued credit card.With regards to multi-national banks, I don't have any experience of Citi but I do with HSBC which operates under a rather complex set of rules. It has to abide by Central Bank rules and those of the Bank of England and where there is a conflict, the stricter applies. I would guess there's a similar situation with Citi and that possibly makes those two banks more secure.

[Mr Lee]

Ah, but Lee, can you deposit Pesos into those accounts? It is a Central Bank dictat that only Filipinos or foreigners with ACR-I cards are permitted the so-called "full service" accounts and only resident citizens can have a locally-issued credit card.With regards to multi-national banks, I don't have any experience of Citi but I do with HSBC which operates under a rather complex set of rules. It has to abide by Central Bank rules and those of the Bank of England and where there is a conflict, the stricter applies. I would guess there's a similar situation with Citi and that possibly makes those two banks more secure.

Yes Mark, my wife or I often deposit pesos into the accounts or peso checks from another bank, and also sometimes wire dollars into them that become pesos automatically if we have to, and BPI and Citi even offers an on-line exchange from Dollars to pesos if you have both accouts as we do and that we have had to use in the past when necessary to fund the nieces and nephews college accounts. As for credit cards, we have been offered them but they charge a fee and we can always use one of our ATM cards to make large purchases or write a peso check when buying furniture for larger amounts, and we have never really had any problems that way, but we are lucky enough to not have to live month to month as many people have to and we live at least a month or more ahead instead, and we usually fund things we know we are going to need ahead of time........ I guess we have been lucky so far but that all can come tumbling down if the US or the market goes totally upside down. :th_thholysheep: