Middle East Banks - things every expat should know
The vast majority of us enjoy a high standard of living in Qatar. We have tax free salaries and, if we are lucky enough to be free of the burden of increasing house rents, our disposable income is generally higher than we would expect in our native countries. Banks will call you up and offer all sorts of inducements for you to transfer your salary to an account with them - credit cards come falling from the heavens if you are one of those who see a benefit in having multiple credit cards from different banks.
All of this is wonderful; sit back and enjoy the lack of queues and free coffee as each bank strives to create it's own little sanctuary for high-earning expats. Wonderful, that is, until (for whatever reason, be it end of contract or redundancy) you no longer have a job.
Your company is obliged to inform the bank that they no longer employ you. That same bank who cossetted and mollycoddled you the previous month will immediately freeze your bank accounts and credit cards; they will then arrange for you to meet someone from credit control, risk management, or whatever title they give that particular department. This individual will be a junior spotty clerk, with as much decision making ability as a bowl of custard. He (or she) will do nothing more than trot out the bank's policy and inform you that all assets will remain frozen for the immediate future.
Unless you know the name of and are on nodding terms with a senior officer of the bank (Deputy CEO or higher), this will remain the situation until you either find a new job (producing a new salary certificate) or have enough funds in your account to cover any outstanding loans and credit card balances (how many of you reading this have two car loans and a couple of credit cards?).
I will more than likely be staying in the GCC, and I have learned a valuable lesson: make sure you either get a company car, or lease one; pay off your credit card balances as soon as you can; and only keep enough money in the GCC to cover your monthly expenditure - there are many, many banks who will set up an offshore account for you that can be used in the same way as a local current account.
Hoepfully, this little nugget of information will prevent others from falling into the same trap as I did.
Oryx, "Generali".. do you have their info?
***********************
Whatever Turns You ON...
Actually don't do HSBC - nightmare
I did mine privately thru Generali - and I am most happy and getting good return.
Any questions I just ring up and they come and see me and I dont have to wait in a bank
Our office aide had an account with the Commercial Bank, now the poor thing earns only QR 1500,-- and the Commercial Bank now have a limit of how much money has to be steadily in the account he lost over QR 120,-- in bank charges because the limit was about QR 5000,--
Poor man I went with him and talked to the bank but they would not budge and he must have a bank account as the salary is paid into the bank.
DohaSteve, will you please either post those banks names here, or PM me too?
Thank you.
You can have an international banking account with Barclays, but you need at least 50k in the account (GBP)
(That's all I know :P)
__________________________
could you please PM to me some of these banks which can set up an offshore account for me. I was thinking of it just recently, and here you go, you embodied my idea..lol..
***********************
Whatever Turns You ON...
acts otherwise.. LOL
exception:
My home bank is Barclays bank - I spent 19minutes on Skype yesterday evening... wating for someone to answer the phone at the call centre.
They didn't - so I called my mother who answered in less than 15 seconds.
Co-ordination with home bank can rather difficult!
I will summarise what u said with my little knowledge incorporated
#1. Never cancel credit cards of your native country
#2. Credit cards are not actually meant to really live in debt. make a habbit of paying on time, whenever u use one. It will make ur life easy and non complicated
#3. Transfer all ur funds to ut country and keep necessary / contengency funds in Qatar, better keep 50% of necessary funds in cash at home
#4. In worse scenario.. If ur company will write to Qatar bank and ur account is cancelled. remember you already have created an excellent rapo with ur bank back home.. so u loose here and gain there.
U r right, ds... we must be careful in the bank trans..and I hope majority of us knows/ face this.
But dont forget that, this is money matter and the bank takes precautions, as we don't give any other securities either..
ANYWAY, I DONt KEEP A CREDITCARD!!!