Banks that reimburse overseas ATM fees BESIDES Schwab

October 27, 2022 5:03 PM

Schwab has decided to close my brokerage and checking accounts without explaining why. So I need to open a new account and would like to find a good one that reimburses overseas ATM fees since I'm out of the country most of the time.

Suggestions please on any banks you'd suggest. Thanks.

posted by lometogo to Work & Money (6 answers total)

At Chase, if you qualify as Sapphire or Private Client, they refund ATM fees worldwide, including any fees charged by the ATM owner. Chase WILL HOWEVER close your account if you register your primary dwelling as being non-US, so you'll need a US-based primary address (no offense, you're a FATCA/FBAR pain in the ass). They will also close the account if you give them reason to believe you don't actually reside in the US any longer (this is probably what Schwab did?).

Chase is generally reviled since they're huge, but TBH they've been really really good to me.

...BTW, it's weird that Schwab closed your accounts given that they have a specialist division for dealing with primarily-overseas US folk, and in fact employ FBAR specialists. If you feel up for it, you could probably fight them and win (that is to say, get them to transfer your account to the Overseas/Foreign division). I mean, unless they've decided you're a weapons smuggler or something.

In my personal experience, foreign banks that are compliant with FATCA/FBAR tend to charge fees for everything, so I would not recommend going that route unless we're talking quite a bit of money (like, Golden Visa money). Many of these fees are, um, not well-disclosed (IME).
posted by aramaic at 5:29 PM on October 27, 2022

I can't vouch for any of these (apart from USAA which I don't do most of my regular checking with) but here's a recent list
to start with:
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 5:30 PM on October 27, 2022

Fidelity Investments "cash management" account reimburses ATM fees worldwide.
posted by basalganglia at 5:43 PM on October 27, 2022

I definitely did not have this issue with Schwab when I lived in Europe for three years. In fact I generally found them to have surprisingly good customer service (including help transferring money between my foreign acct and my Schwab acct, so they definitely knew where I was living).

So my suggestion would be to call Schwab and ask what’s up. My apologies if you have already tried this, but I’ve generally found Schwab to be one of the last bastions of decent customer service, so they would be my natural recommendation for your situation. (Also even if they can just tell you why, that would probably be helpful to know for getting an account at a different bank— a usage pattern suspicious to Schwab would probably register as suspicious with most other banks as well.)
posted by nat at 6:04 PM on October 27, 2022 [3 favorites]

First Republic is great for this.
posted by ghostpony at 6:44 PM on October 27, 2022 [1 favorite]

My local credit union does this.
posted by bradbane at 8:15 PM on October 27, 2022