Currency exchange

I am moving to Sosua in June or July. My wife and I are coming to Sosua Mar 1st. Would like to open a dominican bank account. Any suggestions?

miner6077 wrote:

I am moving to Sosua in June or July. My wife and I are coming to Sosua Mar 1st. Would like to open a dominican bank account. Any suggestions?

Banco Santa Cruz in Sosua is easy if you have all the necessary documents with you. It only took me about an hour to open my accounts.

We also bank with Banco Santa Cruz and have been happy. I would recommend contacting the branch manager in Sosua and asking what you need to open the account. Make sure they know you are Canadian in case anything else might be needed.

You will likely need several months of bank statements from your current bank, as well as a letter from the bank stating how long you've been a customer and that your accounts are in good standing.

Above comments are true, you will need that info.  I opened two accounts with Santa Cruz, one peso, and one US dollar.  The peso account has small monthly fee, but the dollar account does not.  Be sure you get a password before leaving.  They were going to email me a password, and never got it.  Have contacted the bank several times to get it, but they ignore any attempt.  You may also need a letter of reference letter from a local business person.  Attorney, RE agent, or something.

I like BanReservas because I can transfer money in an hour, using the transfer service called WORLDREMIT.  This is the preferred bank with WorldRemit and thats why it happens super fast.  Everyone else it takes 1-3 business days.

However, being one of the most popular banks, they are very busy, always lineups outside and then inside too.  For this reason, I transfer the money to BanReservas and then online transfer to a smaller bank and go there to get my money (no lineups).   I guess it depends where you are.  We are in Punta Cana.

Some banks want to see your documents translated into Spanish but not the big banks like Banreservas.  They can read English. They want to see your income sources and tax documents to verify your income.  They want to scan your id (passport and drivers license) vs you sending them a scanned copy. I opened a few accounts by simply having everything ready in an email and going into the bank to get the correct email address which is ideal if you can find an english speaking service rep, often it is the bank manager.  You might have to break this into several emails depending on the size of your attachments and the limit of their email server.

Patience, and it will be completed in a day or two or 3 or....

true to everything said
we opened an account in scotia banlk at agora mall
our banker was so awesome and friendly.
income tax for 3 years, statements from bank wells in my case for 3 months. passport. DL and boom
i guess it all depends on banker as well
we had a bad experience in megacentro. way to slow and unprofessional

sberger50 wrote:

Above comments are true, you will need that info.  I opened two accounts with Santa Cruz, one peso, and one US dollar.  The peso account has small monthly fee, but the dollar account does not.  Be sure you get a password before leaving.  They were going to email me a password, and never got it.  Have contacted the bank several times to get it, but they ignore any attempt.  You may also need a letter of reference letter from a local business person.  Attorney, RE agent, or something.

When we opened our accounts at BSC, I set up our online access using the app or website (can't remember which - it's been almost two years), but we didn't have to get a password from them to start.

Also, what kind of fee do you pay on your peso account? We only get a 60 DOP charge for our debit cards and that isn't charged every month.

Oscarsahony Sanchez wrote:

income tax for 3 years,

Interesting that Scotia required that. I've not had to provide income tax returns or anything income-related for bank accounts. We only had to show our pension payments for residency.