Banking in Korea

[NewNu2017]

I hate my bank. Okay, so our school uses Shinhan. If your school tries to sign you up for Shinhan in 2018 or later then politely ask to go somewhere else. We received the check card and passbook personal, however, I called the other day to see if I can get the debit card/ international check card with the Visa or MasterCard logo. I was told by the main branch in Seoul as well as the foreign language hotline for the Shinhan card that foreigners, as of 2018, are not allowed to have an international bank card with Shinhan. If you want to be able to make international purchases or even purchase plane tickets using your bank card you have to wait 3 months ( so that you can show proof of income for three months in an amount of at least 2,000 or so USD) and then you have to apply for their credit card. Also, I'm having a lot of trouble getting my certificate to work. So, I can't do online banking. My advice is to avoid this bank.

[cescudero95]

That's weird, the debit card I was issued last year from 신한 is a Visa, so I use it for eBay purchases.  The 씨티은행 card I was issued is only Korean-domestic.

[cescudero95]

Was curious... sometimes I go to a 신한 atm with my 신한 debit card, and it wants to charge me 500원, but sometimes it doesn't.  This last time it was today (Saturday) at just after 6pm.  Wondering, what are the conditions for this?  When is there no charge?  I'll try during a weekday and pay attention, but just seeing if anyone knows.

[eggieguffer]

You know these banks have their names printed on all their branches in English and everyone living here, including Koreans knows what they are in the roman alphabet. And Won is an internationally known currency?  Just curious about who you are trying to make things easier for by writing 신한 and 씨티은행. Do you think that if you write Citibank and Shinhan bank some people on here won't understand? Would you write 'I went to 이마트 to buy some milk'?

[JNM]

Was curious... sometimes I go to a 신한 atm with my 신한 debit card, and it wants to charge me 500원, but sometimes it doesn't.  This last time it was today (Saturday) at just after 6pm.  Wondering, what are the conditions for this?  When is there no charge?  I'll try during a weekday and pay attention, but just seeing if anyone knows.

It could also be that your preferred customer status (or the benefits of that status) have changed.
Maybe you are allowed a set number of withdraws at no charge (usually based on your payroll deposits).

[slycordinator]

When I had NH (농협), they charged 500 won to use the ATM if it was outside of "banking hours." So, if it was past 4:30, they charged. I also got charged the same to transfer money to my KEB foreign transfer account (NH didn't have foreign wiring at the time).

At KEB (or now hana), they don't charge when I'm using their ATMs and I've not been charged fees for interbank transfers for various bills and such.

[Mezoti97]

When I had NH (농협), they charged 500 won to use the ATM if it was outside of "banking hours." So, if it was past 4:30, they charged. I also got charged the same to transfer money to my KEB foreign transfer account (NH didn't have foreign wiring at the time).

As JNM stated, it's based on your preferred customer status with the bank (they have different tiers for customer status levels, depending on factors such as whether your monthly salary is deposited into that bank account, how frequently you make transactions with that bank, etc).

I used to initially get charged a fee to withdraw money from an ATM from my NH bank account on weekends, but then for a long time I no longer got charged a fee. A few years ago, I noticed that NH started charging me a fee again (for transferring money from my NH account to a bank account that was not with NH); I called NH to ask why, and they explained to me the different tiers for customer status levels, and that I had been demoted to a lower tier when the frequency of my bank transactions with NH decreased (my current job prefers a different bank for depositing my salary into, so I no longer use NH as frequently ever since, which resulted in my getting demoted a tier in their preferred customer status level thing).

A different bank I use, used to always charge me a fee for things like transferring money to a bank account that was with a different bank company, but I received a tip from a Korean friend that I could inform the bank that my salary gets deposited into my bank account with them, and then they can change my bank account to a different type of bank account where all fees are waived -- ever since I did that, I no longer get charged a fee by that bank.