Best bank account for cruising the Med

[Eswee]

This question is for any South African citizens cruising the Med:
We plan on buying a boat in the Med in a few years‘ time and cruise/liveaboard. We dont plan on going back to SA as it’s turning into a shithole (to put it mildly). What did you do regarding bank accounts you use in the Med? I believe it will be difficult if not impossible to open a local bank account (eg Greece) since we won’t have an actual address and are not EU citizens.

Which bank do you use and how did you go about opening an account?

[HeinSdL]

It is almost exclusively determined by your tax residence.

[Stingo]

Ask Google for a link to Barclays International

[Eswee]

Hi Hein

We’ll probably keep one South Aftican bank account open and will stay registered at South African Revenue Services (since we’re not officially emigrating) but want to close/sell our companies in SA so we wont be paying income tax/VAT to SARS anymore.

Any recommendations regarding possible bank accounts to use in the Med?

[aqfishing]

I stand to be corrected, but you may find it difficult to open an account in a foreign country without being a resident.

If you have Visa and Mastercard credit cards you should be good.

You can also open a FNB Global Account in Euro. Then you can attach debit cards as per the above to the account. The FNB app will allow you create a virtual cards on that account (they can be loaded to Apple Pay) and to move money between your current and global accounts.

I am sure other banks have similar options.

Good luck.

PS have you done any skippers courses yet?

[Eswee]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

I stand to be corrected, but you may find it difficult to open an account in a foreign country without being a resident.

If you have Visa and Mastercard credit cards you should be good.

You can also open a FNB Global Account in Euro. Then you can attach debit cards as per the above to the account. The FNB app will allow you create a virtual cards on that account (they can be loaded to Apple Pay) and to move money between your current and global accounts.

I am sure other banks have similar options.

Good luck.

PS have you done any skippers courses yet?

We currently have FNB accounts and that does seem to be the easiest option in the end.

Regarding skippers course - we’ll be doing a skippers course in SA before heading to the Med

[MicHughV]

Doesn't hurt to have some cash on hand.....dollars off course.

Though outdated, traveler's checks are still accepted.

[HeinSdL]

I am not quite clear why you would need an account in the area of the Med just because you're in the Med. With an account in SA, a credit card or two and some cash you should be in good shape.

[MicHughV]

Many South Africans sail to the Caribbean....places like St. Maartin are full of " souf efrikens"..

[mojoman2]

I'm an American, but what I found most useful when sailing in the med was a Wise.com account. This allows you to quickly and cheaply transfer money directly to the sellers account. Europeans use credit cards much less frequently than in America and we would have been really stuck a couple of times if we didn't have that.

[AKA-None]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

Doesn't hurt to have some cash on hand.....dollars off course.

Though outdated, traveler's checks are still accepted.

Barely
Mostly a hassle has been my experience over the past 20 or so years