Banking for AUSSIES and other non-US webmasters?
 

In 1999 I established a Small Business Account with Chase in New York so that I could deposit US$ cheques which are too small to economically deposit is my Australian account (ie my bank charges AU$10 per cheque deposited).

This arrangement was working just fine, but then a couple of days ago I received a letter from Chase saying that I am now required to maintain a minimum balance of US$100,000 or they will close my account in 30-days. I phoned Chase to find out what the deal was and was told that the new minimum balance resulted from the high administrative overhead imposed by the account monitoring requirements of George W's Patriot Act.

Thanks George! :321GFY There's no way in the World that I am going to leave US$100,000 stagnating in a bank account! So does anyone know where I can:

a) establish a NO/LOW MINIMUM BALANCE business account
with a US bank WITHOUT VISITING THE USA to open it

or

b) find an Australian bank that charges less than AU$10 per
foreign cheque deposited?

We have an account with Bank of America which definetly doesn't have a 100k in it but we haven't had any problems ? I wonder is it because you set-up the account with your AU company ? Our's is registered to our US LLC ...

Depending on how many checks you get, it might be worth looking into getting a US$ account setup at Westpac - I don't use mine any more, but they used to charge me $20/deposit - with up to 20 checks per deposit. They keep the funds in US$'s until withdraw them.... It took 8 days to clear the checks :)

As an American, I'd ask you to take whatever extra cash you have and donate it to whomever may kick W's ass out or our White House. Once we regain control over this government-gone-wrong, we'll get rid of the partriot act and all other policies which were designed to remove our freedoms.

Land of the free, my ass. Cubans will have more freedom by Novemeber.

Sad shit - sorry to hear of your problems Groove.

We gave up on almost everything "US" a few years back - it was always a humdrum boring sperm count and DNA test at that time. Sounds like it's just a "little bit" worse these days.

I wish to fuck the US people would take command of this and get some sanity bad, else they will drift down a road that I doubt they want to drift down...

Which to Citibank.

forget the USA;


http://www.matapitti.com :thumbsup

go to westpac/bank of melbourne. unlimited cheques for $8 per bundle.

case closed.:glugglug

Hrmmm, I bank with Westpac and was under the impression that it was $10 PER CHEQUE. However I just phoned them and was advised that it's $10 per deposit with a maximim of 8 cheques per deposit, which is certainly a lot better than $10 per cheque :)

They also said a US$ account costs $50/month for balances under $5k or $25/month for balances of $5k+, with NO FEES FOR DEPOSITING CHEQUES. If this advice is correct, a US$ account sounds like a viable option :)

Yep the $100k minimum only applies to "foreign" accounts. As a US company I expect that you'd no longer be classified as a foreign account holder.

commonwealth bank, go and talk to someone and explain how your income comes in, i did this when i was opening my business account and i get unlimited US$ cheques for $8 :thumbsup

Is there a special way that you are getting this deal?

Westpac never wants to give this deal when my partner visits the bank :(

bump

west2pac/bank of melbourne

:thumbsup

send an email to laiki bank in australia, it's part of HSBC

http://www.laiki.com/web/w3au.nsf/We...256B54005094ED

i doubt they will charge you that high