Chile Forum

Would be very interested to hear about official residents experiences with Banco Estado and their CuentaRUT.

A friend of mine, say, an "official" 1-year temp. resident, had reported to me, that filling the form online (thrice, BTW), on their site, in order to get the CuentaRUT card mailed to them "within 15 - 20 days", did not result in anything received by mail.

albertcscs wrote:I don't know if she couldn't understand when I said "jubilado", but she was unmoved. I offered to make a large deposit in place of monthly income, but she remained unimpressed.

Why should they open an account that might require them to pay you interest or expend energy on your behalf? They will earn far more from you as you withdraw those jubilado-bucks from the ATM machines. Bankers are a close-knit clan.

WOW! Great post! The admin seems to be skeptical and provides conceret facts based on past experience.I would also be very interested to get a better idea of this bank.

RuneTheChookcha wrote:A friend of mine, say, an "official" 1-year temp. resident, had reported to me, that filling the form online (thrice, BTW), on their site, in order to get the CuentaRUT card mailed to them "within 15 - 20 days", did not result in anything received by mail.

Same experience here, when I had my temp. residency and RUT.

I have a cuenta RUT. I filled out the forms at the branch and turned them in and I did receive a debit card. However, I had a lot of problems getting the password to work to use ATM machines. I went to customer service several times, they would reset my password and then tell me I had to enter the temporary password they gave me into the ATM and then set a new password. The new passwords never worked and I eventually gave up. Now I only use the account to receive my annual tax refund and I go to a teller to take the money out. So, it was possible for me to open an account, but without the debit card it is not much use for me.

My pareja also had problems with the initial issuance of the CuentaRUT debit card. Took 4 trips to the local office and the issuance of two more cards to finally get it to work. The clerk even went with her to the machine to make sure it was working.

Negatives, a 300 peso charge for ATM w/ds and 600 pesos at the live person caja.

Next plan, how to activate the electronic transfer feature...

The card also serves as a RedCompra debit card and as a TranSantiago BIP card.

So I am not the only one that had problems getting the ATM card to work. This year when I went to withdraw my tax refund, I was told to go to customer service first to get the exact amount in the account. The woman there asked me for my card and I told her that I didn't have it because it never worked. She told me to bring it back and come see her and she'd help me to get it working. Guess I should do that one of these days.

Yea, I have more or less confirmed by several none forum member stories that Scotia bank is currently no more gringo friendly than the bank they bought out. Same rules, same management, same everything. This was a one hit wonder fluke from several years ago, when it was easier for foreigners to open accounts.

I thank the OECD and U.S. government for this b.s. really. Just their hype trickles down to the local manager and girl at the teller as "ALL FOREIGNERS ARE MONEY LAUNDERS, SO NEVER OPEN THEM AN ACCOUNT OR YOU WILL LOOSE YOUR JOB".


We did have an interesting meeting with a large commercial investor (around $30 million+ US range) sometime ago that involved talking with the banks about opening accounts. When the meeting was being setup, the local regional branch started giving us the same b.s. as normal about foreigners not being able to open accounts without residency. We told the head office in Santiago ( totally different bank by the way ) to cut the shit and send us someone from Santiago that knows what they are doing. Which they did. So, it seems to be a 'got money, no problem' problem. The big question is how much money.

Admin..is that really true what you stated about immigrants? We are all criminals?