Recently moved to Taiwan, trying to manage access to US accounts and services

Posted by Best_Classie@reddit | expats | View on Reddit | 4 comments

Hey everyone, I moved to Taiwan a few weeks ago and still figuring out the logistics of living abroad while keeping my financial life tied to the US.

A few things I've been running into:

My main paycheck still goes into my US bank account since I work remotely. Logging in has mostly been fine, but I occasionally hit friction with location security flags.

Amazon keeps telling me certain items aren't available in my region even I just wanna ship it to a US address.

I'm not too experienced with this yet. How do you navigate around? Would love to hear how others handle it. Do you keep a US address on file? Use specific banks that are more expat-friendly? Any services that work better than others? Would really appreciate any practical advice from people who've been through this. Thanks in advance!

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OrangeChickenRice@reddit

I've been in TW for a couple years, so here are some experiences or ideas....YMMV:

If you want a cheap way to keep your US number (mainly for banking 2FA SMS), look at Tello or Ultra mobile. I use Tello and can receive 2FA SMS codes and when needed, I can call US phone numbers over wifi or my local SIM card data. You can buy the Tello ESIM via their website. You can buy the Tello or Ultra mobile physical SIM cards on Shopee via resellers.
Cash is still widely used so you'd do well to get a debit card with ATM fee reimbursement. Fidelity CMA, Charles Schwab checking debit card (silver card), or Charles Schwab brokerage debit card (white card) are 3 good options but you need to setup these with a US address then forward the card to Taiwan. Fidelity does not support opening a new account with a TW address. Charles Schwab international will open an account with a TW address, but due to regulations in TW, they do not offer debit card products to accounts opened in TW.
I've logged in to my Fidelity and Wells Fargo accounts via a TW IP without any VPNs and have never been IP blocked or triggered any account reviews. The addresses on these accounts are my old US address.
People previously used WISE for USD to TWD transfers, but WISE no longer supports the TWD so you'd be sending USD from a US bank to a TW bank and having the TW bank exchange it to TWD. In this scenario, I don’t know if WISE would be much more advantageous over an international wire from the USA.
Use the search function on r/taiwan and you will see many US expats have discussed which TW banks are more US expat friendly and which apps have better English interfaces. Prepare for a lot of paperwork so I recommend visiting a larger bank branch located in a neighborhood with more expats.
FB marketplace is garbage here. The most popular e-commerce websites are Shopee, PChome, and Momo.

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