Transferring USD from US Bank to Banco Ficohsa

Last activity 26 November 2012 by CatrachoEric

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CatrachoEricMember24 October 2012 18:22:34

Hey everyone, my name's Eric. (I'm new here and this is my first post.)

I just purchased a home in Honduras and am looking for some advice. (Will be retiring there in a few years. My wife has a lot of family there.)

The mortgage is with Banco Ficohsa and I opened a USD account with them to debit the mortgage payments from. (I could have gotten the mortgage in HNL, but the rate would have been higher.)

Anyway, it seems that moving USD from here to my USD account with Ficohsa is more of a problem than I would have imagined. There are plenty of ways to transfer USD to an HNL account. I don't want to have to send a stupid wire transfer every month just to make the mortgage payment.

I'm here in Houston, TX, so there are money transfer agencies that might work, but I thought I'd ask the expert expats...

ChristineViP25 October 2012 10:04:52

42879

Hi Eric,

Welcome to Expat.com!

I hope other members will be able to advise you soon.

TravelingHondurasMember26 November 2012 14:30:37

Well I think FICOHSA has a office at the USA called Ficohsa Express where you can deposit to a FICOHSA account phone numbers are 305 357 2857 / 305 357 1999 / 1-866-3426472

Website http://www.ficohsaexpress.com/ only in spanish

Apparently they have a ficohsa express at Kenner,LA which would be the closest

Another option is using http://www.worldfirst.com/ I get paid from World Clients through that service, but a fee may be taken.

On the other hand I would have advised for the mortgage in HNL instead, the interest rates might seem higher but with the HNL devaluation steadily against the USD, your same monthly payment in USD would have convered interest + capital which would have lead to you paying the loan faster. The good thing is you earn USD so you won't feel the difference

Regards,

CatrachoEricMember26 November 2012 15:42:02

Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it!

Yeah, unfortunately I "assumed" that having the mortgage in USD would be more convenient... (I guess that's a little US arrogance showing through.) It's a done deal now, so I'll just deal with it. It seems that the hassle may be due to all the Anti-Money Laundering regulations, at least that's what I'm telling myself. Hopefully in the future things will get better.

I checked out World First, but I guess they're not able to open accounts for Texas yet... too bad.

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