Question Online bank or EMI that accepts Cuba resident?

[ajhernan]

This is a good point, IMO.

IMO, it is also important, what you want to achieve by opening an offshore account, @ajhernan; what is your goal?
To have some money hidden from your government? Or to allow some subjects to pay you easily for your work, as to a Cuban account it is difficult (or impossible)? To have a possibility to pay foreign subjects easily? Or something different?
I think the proper solution should be searched with respect to this...

Yes, in fact my goal is to receive payments for my work, and I can use that money abroad, and buy on the internet for example, a Cuban account is worthless, it only works here and it devalues more and more unless I take the money in usd in cash

 

[Forester]

Yes, in fact my goal is to receive payments for my work, and I can use that money abroad, and buy on the internet for example, a Cuban account is worthless, it only works here and it devalues more and more unless I take the money in usd in cash

Fully understandable.
In such a case, one more question: Is it legal (or, let's say, bearably safe) for you to be an owner / a shareholder of a foreign company? Because, you need a business account anyway; and in some cases it is easier to bank as a company than as a freelancer...

 

[ajhernan]

Fully understandable.
In such a case, one more question: Is it legal (or, let's say, bearably safe) for you to be an owner / a shareholder of a foreign company? Because, you need a business account anyway; and in some cases it is easier to bank as a company than as a freelancer...

I am a web developer but in my country that type of license is complicated and receiving payments from abroad, what I need is to save money like a normal person, I hope things will be easier for Cuba but it is difficult. I need something like wise, rebolut, or online bank, etc

 

[Forester]

I am a web developer but in my country that type of license is complicated and receiving payments from abroad,

Well, OK; I understand.
But be advised that
1) If you can afford to establish / to be a shareholder of a company abroad (I do not know it), then this company can acquire such a licence in the respective country – if it is even necessary (in many countries, you do not need a special licence for web development).

what I need is to save money like a normal person,

2) If you intend to use the account for payments for your work, it must not be a personal account but a business/freelancer one.
Otherwise you will be finished when you obtain the first payment – you will be almost surely asked for a reason for payment / the source of funds; and when you show the invoice, account will be suspended for breaking the terms of service. (Bottom line: There is usually a different pricing for personal and business accounts, the latter being more expensive. And nobody is happy if you pay him differently than you should.)
Usually, you can use a personal account for receiving the money for your work if and only if you are an employee, or a semi-employee (some one-time work contract or so, it depends on jurisdiction). Not to be payed as freelancer who is issuing invoices.
(And if you work – and are paid – without any contract /what happens frequently/, you will face heavy problems when declaring the source of funds; in fact, this is feasible nowadays only using cash or crypto.)

 

[ajhernan]

Y

Well, OK; I understand.
But be advised that
1) If you can afford to establish / to be a shareholder of a company abroad (I do not know it), then this company can acquire such a licence in the respective country – if it is even necessary (in many countries, you do not need a special licence for web development).

2) If you intend to use the account for payments for your work, it must not be a personal account but a business/freelancer one.
Otherwise you will be finished when you obtain the first payment – you will be almost surely asked for a reason for payment / the source of funds; and when you show the invoice, account will be suspended for breaking the terms of service. (Bottom line: There is usually a different pricing for personal and business accounts, the latter being more expensive. And nobody is happy if you pay him differently than you should.)
Usually, you can use a personal account for receiving the money for your work if and only if you are an employee, or a semi-employee (some one-time work contract or so, it depends on jurisdiction). Not to be payed as freelancer who is issuing invoices.
(And if you work – and are paid – without any contract /what happens frequently/, you will face heavy problems when declaring the source of funds; in fact, this is feasible nowadays only using cash or crypto.)

Thanks for your answer,
Yes you are right about all that.
Now, I would like to know what business account for freelancing, to do things right, could I create or recommend as a Cuban citizen?

Well, OK; I understand.
But be advised that
1) If you can afford to establish / to be a shareholder of a company abroad (I do not know it), then this company can acquire such a licence in the respective country – if it is even necessary (in many countries, you do not need a special licence for web development).

2) If you intend to use the account for payments for your work, it must not be a personal account but a business/freelancer one.
Otherwise you will be finished when you obtain the first payment – you will be almost surely asked for a reason for payment / the source of funds; and when you show the invoice, account will be suspended for breaking the terms of service. (Bottom line: There is usually a different pricing for personal and business accounts, the latter being more expensive. And nobody is happy if you pay him differently than you should.)
Usually, you can use a personal account for receiving the money for your work if and only if you are an employee, or a semi-employee (some one-time work contract or so, it depends on jurisdiction). Not to be payed as freelancer who is issuing invoices.
(And if you work – and are paid – without any contract /what happens frequently/, you will face heavy problems when declaring the source of funds; in fact, this is feasible nowadays only using cash or crypto.)

What about the kingdom bank?
Any experience or advice

 

[Forester]

What about the kingdom bank?
Any experience or advice

Well. They are advertising here (I mean OCT), so I think they are not scammers, in principle – otherwise @James Spader (and the other guys) would not allow it, I believe.
It is Dominicana, so perhaps suitable country for you.
Nevertheless, I went through the reviews and feedback here Search results for query: Kingdom bank (I presume you did it too, if not, do! especially this thread Question - Bank account in Dominica with IBAN, it is generally inspirative) and my impressions are mixed. It really seems like it is an alternative if you have problems to find an EMI or neobank that wants to accept your business; but it is not working as well as another solutions. They perhaps just give you a USDT-TRC20 wallet address, with basically unlimited deposits possible, and don't ask for proof of source of funds, invoices, contracts etc. and in addition they can open for you an EUR SEPA account, seemingly with some Lithuanian EMI; and in many cases, all this is quite expensive.
Perhaps, in your particular case, it is worth trying, but carefully. There is one more issue I would like to mention but I consider better not to do it in public; I will PM you.

One more remark: I guess that for you it will be better to apply for a pooled account / shared IBAN, as a) Lithuanian institution will not be very friendly to Cubans, I am afraid; b) you need just some possibility to obtain payments from your clients and pay for some goods and services and for such a purpose it will probably do and will be less expensive. But it's only a detail now.

 

[ajhernan]

Well. They are advertising here (I mean OCT), so I think they are not scammers, in principle – otherwise @James Spader (and the other guys) would not allow it, I believe.
It is Dominicana, so perhaps suitable country for you.
Nevertheless, I went through the reviews and feedback here Search results for query: Kingdom bank (I presume you did it too, if not, do! especially this thread Question - Bank account in Dominica with IBAN, it is generally inspirative) and my impressions are mixed. It really seems like it is an alternative if you have problems to find an EMI or neobank that wants to accept your business; but it is not working as well as another solutions. They perhaps just give you a USDT-TRC20 wallet address, with basically unlimited deposits possible, and don't ask for proof of source of funds, invoices, contracts etc. and in addition they can open for you an EUR SEPA account, seemingly with some Lithuanian EMI; and in many cases, all this is quite expensive.
Perhaps, in your particular case, it is worth trying, but carefully. There is one more issue I would like to mention but I consider better not to do it in public; I will PM you.

One more remark: I guess that for you it will be better to apply for a pooled account / shared IBAN, as a) Lithuanian institution will not be very friendly to Cubans, I am afraid; b) you need just some possibility to obtain payments from your clients and pay for some goods and services and for such a purpose it will probably do and will be less expensive. But it's only a detail now.

Thanks, yes, I searched about them too, I am going to ask them about IBAN account owner name, but it is also expensive that they tell me

Well. They are advertising here (I mean OCT), so I think they are not scammers, in principle – otherwise @James Spader (and the other guys) would not allow it, I believe.
It is Dominicana, so perhaps suitable country for you.
Nevertheless, I went through the reviews and feedback here Search results for query: Kingdom bank (I presume you did it too, if not, do! especially this thread Question - Bank account in Dominica with IBAN, it is generally inspirative) and my impressions are mixed. It really seems like it is an alternative if you have problems to find an EMI or neobank that wants to accept your business; but it is not working as well as another solutions. They perhaps just give you a USDT-TRC20 wallet address, with basically unlimited deposits possible, and don't ask for proof of source of funds, invoices, contracts etc. and in addition they can open for you an EUR SEPA account, seemingly with some Lithuanian EMI; and in many cases, all this is quite expensive.
Perhaps, in your particular case, it is worth trying, but carefully. There is one more issue I would like to mention but I consider better not to do it in public; I will PM you.

One more remark: I guess that for you it will be better to apply for a pooled account / shared IBAN, as a) Lithuanian institution will not be very friendly to Cubans, I am afraid; b) you need just some possibility to obtain payments from your clients and pay for some goods and services and for such a purpose it will probably do and will be less expensive. But it's only a detail now.

I tried a payonner account telling that I am brazilian resident with cuban citizenship and I verified me with my passport but thet declined the account

 

[Konstanz]

You can accept payments in crypto: ETH, BTC, USDT and then use it for online payments.
You can earn for making Visa and residence in some other country

 

[ajhernan]

You can accept payments in crypto: ETH, BTC, USDT and then use it for online payments.
You can earn for making Visa and residence in some other country

Yes, Is really the most easy solution with crypto

 

[Forester]

I tried a payonner account telling that I am brazilian resident with cuban citizenship and I verified me with my passport but thet declined the account

Can you share the reason for rejection?

You can accept payments in crypto: ETH, BTC, USDT and then use it for online payments.
You can earn for making Visa and residence in some other country

Yes, Is really the most easy solution with crypto

Of course Nevertheless, I understand that
– not every customer accepts option to pay in crypto (in some/many?/ countries it leads to unpleasant accounting complications);
– not everything is on sale for crypto...

 

[ajhernan]

Can you share the reason for rejection?




Of course Nevertheless, I understand that
– not every customer accepts option to pay in crypto (in some/many?/ countries it leads to unpleasant accounting complications);
– not everything is on sale for crypto...

Yes, it really is the point

 

[Luca Dubai Setup]

You have tried to seek help, and if it is possible to open an account in the emirates and live in Cuba, it is enough to know how

 

[Forester]

Just one more idea: I discovered yesterday, just by coincidence, that Verifo should also accept Cuba residents, see here Prohibited jurisdictions - Verifo. It is another Lithuania IBAN, IMO remarkably more reputable than Bankera. Consider asking for a freelancer account there, they have such an offer. The monthly maintenance fee is quite high; but if you have no other possibility and some turnover... (furthermore, AFAIK, they are generally open to negotiation, so maybe even in this case).

 

[ajhernan]

Just one more idea: I discovered yesterday, just by coincidence, that Verifo should also accept Cuba residents, see here Prohibited jurisdictions - Verifo. It is another Lithuania IBAN, IMO remarkably more reputable than Bankera. Consider asking for a freelancer account there, they have such an offer. The monthly maintenance fee is quite high; but if you have no other possibility and some turnover... (furthermore, AFAIK, they are generally open to negotiation, so maybe even in this case).

Thanks for replying me. They are an option, yes, I wrote to them because I can not register, the verification sms does not reach my phone.

 

[Forester]

the verification sms does not reach my phone.

Aaash, that's bad, as it can be a deal break, unfortunately. And it is definitely not specific for your residence, e.g. I experienced the same issue with a big EU mobile operator and a Swiss banking institution. Verifo staff might be not able to do very much with it. But if there is more mobile telephone operators in Cuba, try it with a SIM card of another one, it can help. Or, if you have a prepaid card, try with a post-paid one, it might help, too (although changing the operator is better). (For the technical explanation, search some mobile telephony /MT/ knowledge base; it is related to some subtle aspects of MT networks interoperability that I am unable to reproduce, I am only aware of it )

 

[ajhernan]

Aaash, that's bad, as it can be a deal break, unfortunately. And it is definitely not specific for your residence, e.g. I experienced the same issue with a big EU mobile operator and a Swiss banking institution. Verifo staff might be not able to do very much with it. But if there is more mobile telephone operators in Cuba, try it with a SIM card of another one, it can help. Or, if you have a prepaid card, try with a post-paid one, it might help, too (although changing the operator is better). (For the technical explanation, search some mobile telephony /MT/ knowledge base; it is related to some subtle aspects of MT networks interoperability that I am unable to reproduce, I am only aware of it )

Yes, I am also waiting for Verifo response about that, otherwise I must to use another phone number from another country.

 

[Forester]

otherwise I must to use another phone number from another country.

In such a case, inform/ask Verifo beforehand. It is usually expected that you are using a MT number from the same country as you reside and using a foreign number (altough legal and technically possible) can set some red flag that is difficult to unset afterwards
(BTW, so there is only one MT operator in Cuba, I guess? I am just curious.)

 

[ajhernan]

(BTW, so there is only one MT operator in Cuba, I guess? I am just curious.)

Yes, we only have one operator, lol,
here the companies answer to the government and there is not much to choose from

BTW, Thanks to this forum and Forester I have learned a lot, and I found solutions for my case.

Bankera and Spectrocoin accept Cuban residents, I applied and verified with them for personal accounts, also issued their physical cards, and I sent it to Spain, It only took about 7 or 8 business days for the two cards to arrive for free method.
I also tried with The Kingdom Bank and they also accepts my application as Cuban resident. This is another option for us.
Verifo can be another alternative but I have not been able to register yet,

I was also looking for Xolo.io and Ruul (Rimuut) to be able to receive payments from companies for my freelance work and they accepted my application with my normal documents. Now I can receive payments with them and transfer it to a personal account.

Thanks for helping me find solutions and a little financial independence outside of this country.

 

[ajhernan]

Verifo's people tell me today that they can't provide SMS for Cuba

 

[daxbr]

Opening bank accounts in west with Cuban documents is a very questionable tactic from the beginning. All it takes is one wrong statement from the current management of his country and accounts are gone, frozen for years. Russians experienced exactly that only a few months ago. Only choices are large bricks countries with liabilities that come with them. You need western papers to bank in the west.