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Opening account in EU while residing in UAE

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DesertHorse

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Dec 18, 2022
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#1
Need to open account in some EU bank to store ~50K EUR. Am resident of UAE for long, but also recently resident of Hungary, non-EU citizen.
All income is generated in UAE atm. What is the best option to open account and transfer funds to EU bank from UAE hassle free?
Am just curious if somebody had any similar experience. Know that transfers from Cyprus are like red flag, so guess probably are transfers from UAE.
I can provide proofs of income, but would it be enough as UAE is considered "tax-free" zone.
p.s.: transfers to Revolut work fine but just tried few thousands and the probability that this gets frozen for some questions and you need to settle everth online does not smell good. Personal visit to EU is easily possible.
 
#4
You want to speak with @Gediminas or @Fred both have connections to a wide range of banks!
 
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#6
DesertHorse said:
EMIs are no go for me, even for such relatively small amount.
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Then you don't have a lot of options. Maybe CIM Bank in Switzerland.

DesertHorse said:
Sudden freezing
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Sudden freezing happens with banks as well. Just have all your paperwork in order and make sure your business and financial activities are in line with the policies of the EMI.

DesertHorse said:
no physical office
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They all have physical offices, although being younger companies many have embraced remote work. Banks are doing the same, though, closing branches left and right.

Do you plan to go to EU a lot to visit the bank?

DesertHorse said:
no 100K EUR protection
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EMIs have 100% reserve (actually slightly more), which is continuously inspected and audited. With a bank, you're only insured up to 100,000 EUR.
 
#7
Again, EMIs not (just to mention, I have Revolut & Wise already, so no issues with opening account there), it's quite difficult to do any SWIFT-related research in case of any issues with payments.
Your payment may stuck somewhere and they will be just telling bulls**t about issues with payment provider. You cannot use the prints from Wise in some immigration related cases, which I might need later etc etc
CIM Bank in Switzerland - checked comments in google, the names of commentors and bank staff make me think it's more russian than swiss. Probably bank has specific niche.

What about Poland and Hungary?
 
#8
DesertHorse said:
CIM Bank in Switzerland - checked comments in google, the names of commentors and bank staff make me think it's more russian than swiss. Probably bank has specific niche.
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IIRC, the owner is Tunisian but the bank caters a lot to Russians. It's not a bank anyone living in Switzerland actually banks with.

DesertHorse said:
What about Poland and Hungary?
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Not very welcoming or accommodating of non-residents. The only non-resident banking I've come across there have been back channel arrangements.

Maybe doable if you visit in person, but being resident in UAE is a problem because it's currently on the FATF grey list for having weak anti-money laundering laws.
 
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#12
DesertHorse said:
Need to open account in some EU bank to store ~50K EUR. Am resident of UAE for long, but also recently resident of Hungary, non-EU citizen.
All income is generated in UAE atm. What is the best option to open account and transfer funds to EU bank from UAE hassle free?
Am just curious if somebody had any similar experience. Know that transfers from Cyprus are like red flag, so guess probably are transfers from UAE.
I can provide proofs of income, but would it be enough as UAE is considered "tax-free" zone.
p.s.: transfers to Revolut work fine but just tried few thousands and the probability that this gets frozen for some questions and you need to settle everth online does not smell good. Personal visit to EU is easily possible.
Click to expand...
Open account in Hungary where you are resident.
 
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#13
non-resident banking comes to an end and therefore the pointer of @JackAlabama makes the most sense.

Even if you can open an EU Account with your UAE Residence - chances are small they have a long lifetime.

Have seen this 1-2 years ago that Bank Millennium Poland opened for almost every passport without Address Proof even shown - at some point they did re-KYC and the accounts got closed.
 
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#14
If you hold Hungarian passport you can fairly easy open account in MKB Bank in Hungary and that should work out just fine.

CIM Bank as someone suggested is quite expensive and not worth it for 50k.

Bunq - can disable accounts in some cases (happened to me) as they track your location via phone etc. So avoid it unless you really live in EU.

Other alternatives would be Revolut, Wise or N26. (DYOR on these)

What you could also do is open a broker account with Interactive Brokers and just park the cash there. If you hold more than $10k they'll even pay you 3.83% APY interest or if you hold more than €10k they'll pay you 0.853% APY. Not much but better than nothing. Your cash is in US and it's FIDC insured.

Not sure what's the goal so these are some of the options you have.
 
#19
BT Bank Romania opened an account without being resident. Was in-person visit. They asked for ID and foreign Tax # so they'll probably report back to whatever country information you give them, although I'm not familiar with the UAE-Romania reporting standards so they may not.
 
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