UK State Pension

I am moving to Vietnam next month and obviously I cannot open a Vietnamese bank account until I am married to my Vietnamese fiance.
Until that time, is the way that my UK state pension can be paid to Vietnam?
I know they will be able to pay it into a Vietnamese bank account but I cannot open one until I am married.
Does anyone know how I can get access to my UK state pension?
For example, could it be paid into my fiance's account if they had all the information (Account number, IBAN etc} ?
I'm sure somebody already living in Vietnam will be able to answer this question for me.
I appreciate any guidance.
Kindest Regards
Tony - @tonykeys2003

Excuse me for providing additional information you didn't request, but the impression I get from your post is that you might not have ever lived here (?) and, you are preparing to cut all ties back in the UK, including an address where your pension could continue to be sent for the next 6 months or a year?

Please correct me if I'm wrong 🙏

I would be extremely cautious about starting to have your fiance's account be the default direct deposit account for your pension.

You will be able to open a simple account for "electronic transfer deposit only" at a few different banks such as Timo.

You also might be able to find a bank that will open a foreign currency account for you, and your money can then be deposited in GBP.

It would just seem like a much safer plan if you were able to continue to have the pension sent to a UK financial institution for the next 6 to 12 months at least, and then just transfer what you need to a Vietnamese bank such as TIMO or to your fiance's Bank.

I've never had any problem making a direct wire transfer to my wife's accounts at BIDV Bank or Agribank or when she was using my ACB bank account when I'd return to the states during COVID.

Check with Vietcombank & Techcombank to see what sort of plans they have there.

Definitely once your marriage is certified and your TRC is approved you will be able to open your own account, although we've had a lot of discussions about how different banks are allowing different features and some are not.

My deposit account is with AgriBank and I know that I would be able to make that my direct deposit Bank if I were to stop maintaining my bank account in the United States.

but you may be checking this out from the wrong end.

In the United States we have to be certain that the government is going to allow direct deposit to a bank connected with an address outside the United States.

so if you haven't make sure that you fully investigate the requirements of your government concerning pensions being paid to expatriates.

Good luck 🤞

PS: do you have $25,000 or more in cash and investments to keep in a brokerage/bank account?

If you do you would qualify for a Charles Schwab International account and all of your problems would be solved.

if your government allows it your pension would be direct deposited to their bank account every month and you would get unlimited ATM withdrawals at no charge, plus a certain amount of free wire transfers every month depending upon the total combined balances you maintain.

Another option is to open a wise account or similar.  Use your British account to transfer funds into WISE online and then do currency conversions once in WISE.  You can use the WISE card as a credit card when required.

I do something similar for my Aussie pension and it works well.  I transfer our living expenses from WISE and  into my VN wifes account once a month ín Dong.

@tonykeys2003

I am also moving to Vietnam in a couple of months. Yay!

My USA pensions and Social Security are directly and electronically deposited in a US bank account. I will use an ATM card to get money in Vietnam.

This, and wire transfers when necessary to Vietnam banks which entail fees are how I must do it. The US gov't and the state governments from which I get pension funds will not allow a direct deposit into a Vietnamese bank, so that is out of the question.

I lived in Vietnam for two years 2015 - 2017 and back then paid even my rent of about USD $600 in cash in VN Đong. A lot of businesses in HCMC will accept phone-based transactions like Applepay or credit cards with chips installed. But I also heard from businesses in VN when I was there in November - January recently, "who doesn't like cash?"

I have a Schwab checking and savings account. They refund all ATM fees monthly and honor the forex rate at whatever bank's ATM I use to take out cash.

I hope this helps you come to a decision about how to do banking. Others on this forum have more experience in VN than I have, and can probably give you some direction in how to proceed. Good luck!

@OceanBeach92107

That's great information, I appreciate it.

And you are right I do plan to break all ties with the UK. I have been to Vietnam many times and have now decided to retire their. I have done some research already and my state pension is able to be paid to an institution in Vietnam. And I will certainly look into the idea of a simple deposit account with TIMO. I wish I had the kind of capital that you were talking about, but the amount that's available to me only total around six thousand dollars. The good thing is that may fiance already owns quite a large house so we don't have to worry about rent. I am quite worldly wise and have lived in several countries during my 70 years, and at least having a Vietnamese wife will help a lot when it comes to the legalities of living in Vietnam after we are married.

I appreciate that you took the time to reply with quite lengthy explanations which I greatly appreciate.Will let you know the result once I'm settled in.

Tony

The US gov't and the state governments from which I get pension funds will not allow a direct deposit into a Vietnamese bank, so that is out of the question.

@Lennerd

I don't know about your particular state government, but the US Government does allow direct deposit to most foreign nations, although as long as you can maintain a US domicile address and keep your Schwab account open, you should be fine.

There is a thread where we started discussing this in 2018. Good technical points covered by Rick/Budman1

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=761380

@tonykeys2003

As I always find Oceanbeach’s advice is good. I would have it paid into uk account for up to a year while you sort yourself out. Assuming you have uk internet banking , you can transfer whenever you need into your wife’s account (it is easy transferring foreign currency in). I don’t know your uk bank, but make sure you have a approval system that does not use a mobile - should be card reader only system. When you have your local bank sorted, you can arrange transfer direct of pension. You know once it starts going overseas you stop getting any increases?