Advice Needed: International Work Assignment - Bank Accounts & Credit Card

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Will be paid in local currency and also at home.

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Elaborate?

I've been overseas for 6 years in Europe and Asia with a similar pay system. My company has allowed me to adjust the distribution between local and home pay. So after several years, I've learned how much I need in each country so I don't need to do bank transfers so much. It only gets complicated when taxes are due in 3 countries! So, I have a bank account and credit card in each country which is needed for local commerce.

If the local HSBC branch allows easy and low/no fee transfers to the US, that would be a great option. it took me some time to know what the right split was, and I did some big international transfers my first couple of years. Check if your company will pay transfer fees - mine does.

I’ll share some of my experiences from the last 6-7 months. There have been a few large points and some smaller tricks. Biggest point #1. Initially, the biggest thing for me was making sure I had adequate liquidity in host country to fund our lifestyle and do things like buy a car and get family set up. Also, since we live in a foreign country and are pretty well established, I view the cushion we have now as an extension of our emergency fund. Biggest point #2: Beyond that basic point of liquidity locally, I try to maximize how much US dollars I get into my US bank account to put towards investments. I have recently applied to change my local draw in ½ (to the minimum) which will allow me to slowly draw down my local bank balance. On the long term there are a lot of ways to shift money (without wires) to either currency depending on how we manage our outflows. We kept our USA bank we’ve had for a long time and also kept our high end travel/no international fee card with great points rewards.
Ok, now to the minor points such as credit cards and tracking monthly spending (if that is something you do) – it gets pretty hairy tracking everything if you still have expenses in USA and/or are still using USA credit card for local purchases, and also a local credit card and debit card. Also, if you have a spouse, I found banking is pretty interesting – I’d recommend getting her a copy of your credit card (not her own as that seemed very difficult) ASAP so that your purchases can be on one card…we did not do that for a while and it was a nightmare to track and manage expenses on 4 cards and two currencies plus checking accounts. I have found the credit card points/rewards very underwhelming here. Some purchases here (with gov’t entities – drivers license, etc) would not accept foreign bank card. I’m not sure what all you’ll be expensing as a part of your job (travel for business, entertainment, etc), but thinking about what currency expenses are being spent in vs. being reimbursed is important, especially if home flights are included in your assignment. Many of my relocation benefits were paid in USD but the expenses were locally.
We tried to avoid wiring money to avoid fees but ended up wiring a small amount of USD into local currency to buy a car – which, after the fact we learned we in fact did not need to do because cars are so cheap here. I’m not sure how an HSBC to HSBC transfer is but you can be sure you’re paying money to transfer – for me personally, I do not plan to wire any more money, and I am actively trying to both maintain liquidity here and maximize my free cash flow in USA each month to put towards investments. I’ve found that the HSBC locally is OK, just don’t expect the same HSBC as the states or elsewhere.

I swear the OT has a vast array of people with all kinds of jobs. I sit at a desk all day in I.T. while the OT travel s the world.I didn't realize how much alot of you guys have to do just to work and get paid overseas. Then I realize sitting at a desk all day in I.T. is not so bad lol.Love reading these types of post though opens my eyes to just how big this world is and how far the OT reaches.Good luck op.

We had HSBC for local credit and currency (HKD$). Allowed us to travel internationally with little to no banking issues. Maintained our local Chase accounts due to size and ease of money transfers cs smaller market banks.

We arrived in HK and setup a meeting with a local HSBC manager, they handled pretty much everything and made it very easy to setup. I’d bank with HSBC if outside of US, regardless of some ethics questions.

No left a few years ago after our project completed. Miss it but it’s certainly not the same now.