Banking

[WILLIAM M.]

Hello,
I have made the plunge. After four previous visits to Belize I have decided to rent an apartment in San Pedro. I have already laid the ground work for finding a place for six months. My question is banking: I know what I need to do to open a checking account in Belize (my VT bank’s letters etc.) is it worth it? I am not certain I will spend much more time afterwards, if I don’t love my experience. Or should I just eat foreign transaction fees until I am certain. Also which banks are the easiest to do personal banking with?
Thanks,
Bill Menezes

[COUNTRY EXPERT ANN KUFFNER]

Bill,

Did you get a chance to read the April Monthly Newsletter? It focuses on banking in Belize. Here is the link: https://internationalliving.com/2015/04/april-2015-4/. The newsletters should show up on the Home page. But I’ve found it is actually easier to go to the FAQ page for the list of items, on the left hand side of the page. Scroll down to the bottom to find Monthly Newsletters and open that page.

If you aren’t sure you will stay in Belize after six months, it probably isn’t worth it to go through the challenges of opening a bank account. You can take money out of the various bank cash machines pretty easily. And you can possibly write checks for your rent. You can bring quite a bit of cash with you so that you can initially pay rent and bills in cash. But you will have to go to the various utility companies to pay your bills if you don’t have a bank account. I pay all of our utility bills on line, which saves me a lot of time.

To save on transaction fees, open a Schwab account. I have a Schwab bank account in the USA and a brokerage account. They do not charge any ATM fees when we take out cash in other countries. We get hit with the fee initially at the teller machine. But Schwab reimburses it later. Schwab also doesn’t charge interest on their overseas credit card. So we primarily use Schwab for banking and credit cards.

Our lawyer had suggested that Atlantic Bank is the most solid bank in Belize. That is where we bank. She had said that Belize Bank is also pretty good. But they just recently lost their correspondent banking status, so steer clear of them for now. It appears the the US government has singled out a few banks in Belizes, the Belize BAnk being the primary one, for not being in alignment with US banking policies. If you decide to open an account, Atlantic Bank is a decent bank. We have not had problems with them to date.

[WILLIAM M.]

Thank you Ann,
I did read the April newsletter. But you answered two of my questions. I knew the hoops to go through to open a bank account. Six months in San Pedro does not merit my time to go through the hoops. Also I suspected that Atlantic might be the bank of choice. I have noticed in previous trips to Belize that many businesses use Atlantic. You have confirmed my game plan. If I love living in Belize, I’ll be there 2016.
Bill

[COUNTRY EXPERT ANN KUFFNER]

Bill,

Just this week I heard that there have been new “challenges” wiring money to banks in Belize from the USA. Some people are convinced that the FATCA regulations will result in it becoming nearly impossible to wire money anywhere outside of the USA in the future… Some banks are definitely not adequately meeting the USA’s stringent requirements. And the USA Correspondent banks are cutting off a lot of these banks. But I did wire a transfer to meet my QRP requirements within the last two weeks, to Atlantic International, and it breezed right through without a hitch. But given that there are currently issues with overseas transfers, in general, it’s best to hold off opening a bank account in Belize until you decide if you will live here fulltime.

[DAVID L.]

We have made an offer on a house in Consejo and are awaiting the mortgage through Atlantic International Bank. (We decided the mortgage route for several reasons including cash flow preservation and purity of the transaction (if the bank is OK with the transaction then I will probably be also))

That being said, we are opening a US Dollar account at Atlantic International Bank (easier to move dollars back and forth) Once we move to Belize, we’ll open a Belize Dollar account at Atlantic Bank for our local transactions.

So far, that’s the plan.

David

[COUNTRY EXPERT ANN KUFFNER]

David,

That’s a good approach. I was talking to another expat yesterday who mentioned that it seems much easier to open an US $ account these days than a BZ dollar account, for expats in Belize. Once you are here, living on the ground, it should be much easier to open your BZ $ account, since you can follow through with local Atlantic bank staff. Let me know if you have problems getting your BZ $ account set up once you are here.

Things keep changing in overseas banking, in general, since FATCA came into being. Several banks in Belize lost their US correspondent banks recently, so it is no longer to make wire transfers in US $s to those banks. I hope that Atlantic Bank won’t have this type of correspondent bank problem in the future. But the correspondent bank issues often stem from the US side, where US banks are cutting back on which countries they are willing to work with, partly based on size/volume of money transfers. Belize is quite small compared to other countries, so some banks may not think they are worth the effort.

[DAVID L.]

WISH US LUCK

We received notice last week that our mortgage for our new home in Corozal was approved by Atlantic Bank International. Arlette Arana, Atlantic International Bank, was a pleasure to work with. Her email address is aarana@AtlanticIBL.com and her phone number is 501-223-5306. From the time all the documentation was summited, it took about 3 weeks for approval. At the same time, I opened a USD account at Atlantic International Bank to make it easier to transfer funds from/to US/Belize.

Tomorrow I will be transferring funds from my US bank to two different accounts at Atlantic International Bank. (That’s the ‘wish us luck’ part.) It would be great to use on-line banking from the US to Belize. We’ll see.

My QRP package is going in on Wednesday. Our US home is on the market. (Another ‘wish us luck”.)

I’ll let everyone know how it goes.

[COUNTRY EXPERT ANN KUFFNER]

I am glad you had a good experience with your mortgage at Atlantic Bank. Let me know if your US dollar transfers went through quickly. As of this week I’ve heard that all Belize banks are currently having challenges with BofA as a correspondent bank. I am watching to see what direction this goes. The banks are looking for alternate correspondent banks at this time. Apparently, BofA has decided it isn’t worth it for them to continue as a correspondent bank for a small country like Belize, due to the FATCA requirements.

I do wish you luck. The QRP process is usually pretty easy.

[COUNTRY EXPERT ANN KUFFNER]

Here is an update on correspondent banks in Belize. This week we received a notice from Atlantic Bank that BofA has pulled the plug and now will no longer act as a correspondent bank for any Belize bank going forward. Atlantic Bank is looking for a new correspondent bank. I have been told that they will find one, but we are waiting to see what happens. We can still deposit checks. But as of this time we can’t wire US dollars into or out of our Atlantic Bank account.

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