Chile Forum

my US banker is talking to a couple of Santiago (Banco de Chile) bankers for me.

Completely curious if you have any luck with it. I am sure somewhere there is a State side or international bank with some sort of agreement. Just have not found it yet.

There are very long and involved methods of setting up a Chilean corporation, with legal rep in Chile. Lots of paperwork, and lots of cost involved. Unless you are setting out to do a lot of business anyway, perhaps not worth it.

It is rather ironic, that I can open a bank account in Communist China with $1 US and a passport. I believe you can even open one as foreigner without ever stepping foot in China.

Regarding the Visa card I found for example on the rare occasion that a website in Chile can process a visa card at all, they will not accept my Citi bank credit card or my etrade Visa check card from the States.

By the way, there is almost no websites in Chile that take credit cards.
For example, not even nic.cl the domain name register for Chile accepts credit cards. You have to deposit money in their account.

I have also run in to for example signs at ski resorts that say 20% discount with a citi bank credit card. They will not give it to me because it is not a Chile citi bank card.

The real head scratcher was two weeks ago I contracted a cell phone through Movistar, after jumping through the stock BS that every Chilean puts up with. I used my Citi bank credit card from the States as the guarantee on the contract, even though I payed cash for the phone and service payments. A week later I get a call from the service rep, telling me that I need to go to an ATM and get a receipt to prove that the card is mine (which proves nothing at all). They could not run the card on their credit card processor in Santiago, and the main office freaked out. That whole thing is beyond me. If I don't pay my bill on time, cut off my service. It is that simple.

You might ask banco estado about their RUT savings accounts. In theory all you need is a RUT number to open one. This is completely new, and very few of their reps will know what it is. The IRS asked Banco Estado to start it because so many people did not have a bank account in Chile, and the IRS wanted to make mass electronic refunds. We have not been able to swing this yet however for a foreigner. This may be a case of trying different branches.

The best shot for opening an account I have seen, with only temporary residency, is to simply go to a few Banco Estado branches and try different account desks for a savings account. You will likely get a few that turn you down, but there also just as many that will open it for you. Play cute.


The opaque is completely in the banking system. It is their approach to business that is real head scratcher. Massive amounts of money to be made by serving a market, and they are ignoring. None have presented us with any good reason for it. The checking accounts are complicated, but there is no reason really for not opening savings accounts for foreigners. They do it, but in a wishy washy way.

Part of the problem is that the staff is often chronically under trained. If there is a method, only about 1/5 of the staff at any given bank will be aware of it. That is why talking to everyone is needed to find the one guy who either knows how to do it, simply does not care, or even better does not know that he is not suppose to do it. Once your account is open however, I have never encountered any case of them calling up the next week and saying sorry we made a mistake and we need to close your account.

You can wire money however directly over the counter to yourself at Banco Estado and I believe Santander also. Rather strange that they will accept a wire, and then let you walk out the door with the cash, but not open a saving account.

Whoa here comes techie Dumb dumb, could someone pay the rent by Paypal?????

First,Pay pal is not a bank!!!!

There is no regulatory over site for pay pal, and they are currently being sued in class action law suits in multiple States in the U.S., including state attorney general offices for consumer fraud. They are not even a credit card processor. If you read their service agreement, even after you close your account with them, they can take money from your accounts up to 18 months after you close it.

We bill our clients using Google Checkout now. Google functions as a regular credit card processor does, and is going out of its way to not make the mistakes that Pay pal did.

For well established clients, we do provide limited proxy payments such as caretakers, property taxes, and so on. Clients make deposits to our accounts in the States or pay us with a credit card online, and we make the associated payment in Chile. This however is more of convenience payments, and is mostly geared towards clients that are not in the country and need to pay the occasional bill.

We have a strict policy before we will even consider doing this for clients. In general our policy on providing this services are you must have assets inside the country (e.g. house, car, etc.), you must be under formal contract with us for other services (e.g. legal, construction, other relocation ), and you must do at least $5,000 US a year in business with us apart from such payments.

We also require at least one direct wire deposit to our bank accounts either in Chile or in the United States to establish identity for international money laundering law compliance paperwork before we will accept credit card payments. After that clients can pay with their credit card online, and we can make the associated payment in Chile.

Really it is not as bad as it sounds. In general, most of our clients meet those requirements just in the course of having us handle a property purchase for them.

For large property transactions, we never accept clients money to our accounts beyond for example such things as expenses for documents or title registration. Far too much legal exposure. We are not an escrow company.

We have considered offering such a payment system however on a larger scale, and perhaps at some point we will more formally provide this service, it is just a regulatory, legal, and accounting mess that currently does not make it worth the trouble.

Fair warning to anyone thinking of jumping in to this, we can do it as a secondary service to clients because we have the legal infrastructure to handle it.

If you try this without the proper regulatory paperwork, you are acting as an informal bank in Chile and it is a very serious crime they do prosecute. Banks hate competition.

Also, at the end of the day, it still does not solve the problem of a foreigner establishing credit and income inside the country.

Really the best way so far for day to day paying for foreigners without residency is to use a Check ATM card with a visa or master card symbol, deposit money in your account outside of Chile, and pay your bills or take money out of the ATM in Chile. Best to have several for emergency. The exchange rates are better than the banks in Chile, and the lines are a lot shorter. There are some banks that will allow you to take larger sums out over the counter on your card. I believe I mentioned before citi bank chile and santender Chile.

It just seems so cumbersome, to have to carry large amounts of cash and go around physically to the utility companies periodically to pay bills. Rent etc.,

That is all in the future still for me. What bills can you pay at these centers, gas,water electric, phone, cel??? Is there an ATM on site or nearby?

ServiPag in some ways is a direct result of the hassle Chileans have to go through to deal with banks.

If and when you do get an account at a bank, there are also many banks that will allow you to do things like deposit checks through ServiPag.

Just to be clear, if any of the members should decide to do some sort of informal type payment system between them, we can't officially endorse it or get involved for a whole host of legal reasons. But, good luck with it should you decide to give it a spin.