Moving $

[team karst]

US banks and financials, but will be in the Islands. What are best practices for getting $ from savings into checking, doing the taxes, and other related issues?
Concentration on cyber security. TIA.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by team karst

US banks and financials, but will be in the Islands. What are best practices for getting $ from savings into checking, doing the taxes, and other related issues?
Concentration on cyber security. TIA.

I can't tell you the "best" practices but we have been outside the US (and using US banks) for the best part of 20 years. We have used online banking over whatever Internet service has been available wherever we have been. We do nothing differently than we would do in the US. All online banking sites use good encryption. We have not had any issues or security problems moving money from account to account paying bills, even moving funds to other's accounts or businesses when needed.

The only security related issues we have experienced have been complications around signing on to the banking sites. They more often these days require 2 part authentication which sometimes is hard to comply with but even this seems to be getting worked out.

BTW, we have had lost or stolen cards and fraudulent transactions on occasion over the years. The best security practice is to monitor your accounts frequently (daily) and watch for transactions you haven't initiated. Paypal recently hit my account four times for one transaction but they responded quickly whenI notified them of the duplicates.

[shimari]

Here are some things you can do in order of ease of implementation.

1. Use good random passwords. I highly recommend a password manager. 1password is considered the best by many, but it does require a subscription. If you want free, and are willing to keep your vault local than bitwarden is also very good.

2. Most credit cards and banks now have a way to text or email you when a transaction exceeds a certain amount. I get an email any time my card is used, and I was able to stop someone who cloned my card the same day last year.

3. Get two factor authentication for all of your accounts. The best is something like a yubikey. Second best is time based one time password (TOTP) which is supported by 1password, bitwarden, and google authenticator. Third best is where they text or email you a code. Most banks only support the third, unfortunately.

4. This is only for the paranoid, those who need to protect significant funds, or with a high threat model. It does take some IT chops. Establish a VPN exit node that you control. DO NOT pay for a VPN service. Most are highly suspect, and they can see all of your exit traffic. Tailscale is currently the most versatile, and easy to set-up. Algo by trail of bits is probably second. Both require you establish an exit node. I use tailscale and Digital Ocean at $5/month. All banks use TLS now so this is just protection against a sophisticated threat actor.

You have fraud protection on your credit card purchases. Some banks also cover debit cards now as well, but you should check with your bank.

Feel free to ask any specific questions. I'll try and help.

[thomm225]

Pretty much everyone does their banking remotely these days whether they are in the islands or on the mainland at their bank's website.

This is why many bank branches today are closing down.

You can move money between accounts, make transfers to other accounts ....family, friends etc and deposit checks with your phone from your boat or where ever your phone has a signal.

The same with taxes.

Most anyone under 45 or so does their taxes online as well as many older folks .......in the islands or on the mainland

As far as Cyber Security use new software/OS's and make sure they are updated to the latest edition.