Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Cymro]

Bank clerk: What's your secret number?

...and your alien registration card details, passport, employment contract, payslip. Hand them all over.



I know they're just following government orders, but I need answers:

1) Do Koreans have to show proof of their income when they transfer money abroad?
(If not, how is their money any different from that in the pockets of us foreigners?) (And don't mention illegal incomes. Plenty of Koreans earn illegal and/or tax-evasive cash.)

2) Why do banks here insist on seeing employment contracts and payment records when the computer screen in front of them (and our little bank books) clearly shows a monthly deposit from the account of an employer whose name is right next to the sum? Every month!

3) Again, I know it's the government's say-so: we foreigners can only send home USD10,000 (what's wrong with stating a limit in local currency?) during a single stay in Korea (not sure, but as far as I know it could be a week or a year or whatever) and we have to have permission to send home more. What use is this rule if we can get around it by leaving and re-entering? What use is this rule when it takes into account no consideration of how much you might be bringing back into the country by using your foreign bank/credit cards here (or any other means) (or even taking/sending out of the country by other means)?
(The rules there are what I was told by the manager of a Seoul branch of Foreign Exchange Bank. I apologise if there are any inaccuracies.)

4) My passport clearly states that it "is the property of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom". I guess immigration officers worldwide have permission to stamp it, stick things in it, staple it and whatever, but, since "it should not be tampered with or passed to an unauthorised person", I wonder if every bank clerk in Korea has permission from Q. Liz's Gov. to scribble in it and smudge it with red ink?

5) Do banks here have freely available such information as their rate of charges for such things as electronic (or wire) money transfers? They usually can't tell me until they put details into the computer and it comes up with a randomly not too expensive figure, but today, at Kookmin Bank the chap sitting next to the clueless clerk I was dealing with boldly stated off the top of his head "15,000won". I thought that was a little expensive for sending 1.4m, a little too regular an integer and strange that he knew it without asking the computer. So I decided to test him. "How about 2m?" "18,000". Grudgingly, I agreed to let Kookmin handle my cash transfer for the first time. So I said I'd give the 1.4m inclusive of the charge and as I wrote it down it struck me that I'm no longer sending 1.4m and so the charge should surely be less so I quickly guestimated the math to be 1,386,000won with a 14,000won charge. They were having none of it. How much does your bank charge for this service?

6) Why do Korean employers (of most foreign English teachers, at least) insist on you having an account with a specific bank? I regularly buy things online here and transfer money to sellers' accounts by just tapping in their details on the ATM. There's a small fee, but are hagwon directors and the such so miserly as to put you through the trouble of opening an account at an inconvenient bank just to save them a couple of thousand won each payday?

7) What's so secret about a bank customer's secret number in Korea?

Banking. Positively and definitely the one thing in this country that never fails to aggrevate me beyond the boundaries of reasonable frustration.

[JongnoGuru]

I remitted 2/3 of my contracted salary out of Korea in the early 1990s. That 2/3 of contracted salary was the stated, official, legal, approved, well-understood-by-any-bank limit that I could repatriate. The sum (that 2/3 of contracted salary) was well over USD 10,000 / year. Have rules changed? Gotten worse? They certainly are looser now for Koreans. It doesn't stand to reason that it's gotten stricter only for expats.

[denverdeath]

[bellum99]

I personally know that you can send 100 million a year. I sent one hundred million in December and then another 100 million in January. The main bank in Seoul said this was the law.

[pegpig]

[JongnoGuru]

Everyone seems to be fixated on this USD 10,000 figure. I haven't remitted out of Korea the way I used to since the IMF crisis. But back in the day, the only resonance the sum USD 10,000 had with any expat was the amount you could physically hand-carry out on the plane. Had nothing to do with what you could remit through the banks if you had a job here.

Someone with a job and a work visa and an employment contract should be looking at 2/3 of their income as the remittable limit, not USD 10,000.

There are foreigners in various fields in Korea whose savings exceed USD 10,000 a month. That's savings, and that's per month. Legally earned and duly taxed. Now obviously, a USD 10,000/year limit would be unrealistic.

[itaewonguy]

becuase korean workers are ROBOTS! they have no flexiblity!

p.s I ONLY EVER show them my passport! and thats it! and if some hero for a day bank teller tries to tell me we need income slip! I say NO!
I dont have one! becuase I dont work! that shuts them up!

[Horangi Munshin]

Hmmm


I've made transfers with Busan bank, Kookmin and Nonghyup. Busan and Kookmin charged 15000 and 13000 resp. Nonghyup charged 27000, but when I checked my home bank account, the Busan and Kookmin transfers attracted a fee at home too, not so for Nonghyup, it ended up cheaper overall!! If you only pay 13-15th for a transfer check your home account for fees!


Nonghyup want to see my bankbook and alien card of passport, maybe both, Busan bank wanted all kinds of stuff, like some letter of proof I work for my hagwon etc. I walked into Kookmin with a wad of cash and my alien card, no probs.

[Cymro]

[Cymro]

[Homer]

100 million a year...come on now...you save near to 115 000 US per year do you bellum99???

That was funny.

As for banking, the 10 000USD limit has to be for single wire transfers and not for the whole year.

We wire about 2-3million won a month per month and this far exceeds the 10 000USD for a year. We have been doing this for close to 5 years. No worries, no problems.

As for wire fees, I pay nothing back home with my bank. I negociated that a few years ago. I pay around 8000Won here when I wire.

I had to hand in my documents the first time I wired but that was one time to open a file. Now its routine.

[JongnoGuru]

[denverdeath]

[Hyeon Een]

Does anyone else get a bankers cheque in their home currency and mail it home? I guess its no good if you're in a hurry for the money to arrive, but if there's no real big rush it works out cheaper than wiring it. I never bothered to get a bank account so its been convenient.

-HE

[Cymro]