My International Banking Nightmare – ALTCOIN MAGAZINE
The first year I lived in South Korea, I was impressed with their banking system, even though I had limited access to use it. It was clear that even back in 2010, South Korea was pulling ahead of my home country (The United States) in terms of customer service and how easy it was to track, access, transfer, and even spend money.
Direct bank transfers were possible between customers of different banks and took only a matter of seconds to go through. Most of the public transportation already ran on a card or phone-based payment system, eliminating the need to pull out cash or carry change for a quick subway ride. And, if you lost your bank-card, getting another was easy-peasy– a system that is still leagues behind in the United States, where most banks still feel some strange, unnecessary need to send you your new card via snail mail.
All of these things were and still are pretty exciting. Every time I leave Korea and return, I am happy to be reunited with such an easy-to-manage system. However, I am still not and never will be South Korean, which means that a lot of my banking is still being done through the United States banking system.
This is where everything falls apart. Living in one country and banking in another should not be as hard as it (still) currently is. Over the past year, I had countless issues with my US banks. Once my debit card was canceled due to a suspected security breach– No one seemed to be able to figure out how to get me a new one. I spent countless hours on the phone with companies on a 14-hour time difference. If you think dealing with customer service is bad already, just wait until you’ve had to stay up late or wake up early just to try to get a BOA representative on the line during an international phone call… Can you hear me tearing my hair out yet?
I tried 5 times to have a new card sent to me. 5. One of those times, I was even IN the United States! We tried having my card shipped by the bank several times, they even charged me upwards of $40 for shipping for a card that never came! I used a shipping service, the cards never arrived. I had them sent to my mother’s house back home, nothing. When I went back to the East Coast to visit my family, I tried again to get a card. I told my bank and the several others that I applied with the urgency of my situation: To no avail. The cards never came.
Not being able to get a card, which in turn means I cannot access any of the funds in my US bank,(which messes with ALL your expenses and bill payments) was not the only headache of banking abroad for the past 10 years…
The other terrible downside is international banking fees.
It took me a little while to realize exactly how much money I was losing to banking fees during my first year in Korea. Sadly, as someone who was guilted into the terrible American higher education system, I am someone who will be paying student loans until I die. In the beginning, (when Korea was a cheaper place to live) I was sending roughly $1000 USD back to my American bank to pay back my student loans. (Fun fact: It didn’t make a dent in the amount I owed)
When I realized I was losing about $250 a month in banking and international transfer fees, along with ever-changing currency exchange rates, my enthusiasm for sending money back waned. Over the next year, I slowly sent less and less back to avoid losing my otherwise spendable money.
It’s been 10 years and none of this has improved.
But, in 2019, something did change: I started using more cryptocurrencies.
There have been a handful of times over the past year where cryptocurrencies made it possible for me to access my funds at times and in ways that were not possible in the past, and the best part is: The fees are so much less!
Cryptocurrencies have given me the ability to move my funds around for a fraction of what I would pay through Paypal, Western Union, or a bank. Furthermore, because of the improvements in blockchain, many of these cryptocurrency transactions happen quickly, unlike Paypal, banks, or Western Union — all of which still rely on physical banking hours, and if you are stuck on or around a holiday with no money–this can be a real nightmare.
To me, the most exciting thing about cryptocurrencies is that they are truly borderless.
Plus, you get the added bonus of not having to plan your entire schedule around banking hours and most of the time, you won’t be dealing with a pesky, physical banking card — which has the potential to really screw everything up if it gets lost or stolen.
So, if you’re an avid traveler or just someone who wants a better banking system, I encourage you to start dabbling in cryptocurrencies. It’s a new decade and I think it’s time for international banking to see some radical changes.
Published at Sat, 04 Jan 2020 02:32:06 +0000
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