Korean Job Discussion Forums

[RnH]

Hi there,

We usually send our savings home to South Africa every couple months, but due to the bad exchange rate, we've been hanging on to it here in Korea.

Thus, we were wondering if we could perhaps put our savings into some kind of account here, as we will be in Korea for the next year or so and we won't need to use the money until then. We are looking to earn a bit of interest.. even if small? Anything is better than it just all sitting in our bank account! Does anyone know anything about this perhaps? We are looking for an account that we could add to every month preferably.

Another thing - we are both on E2 visas - how would the tax work?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks so much!

[Gnod]

Pretty much any bank could set you up. You have to set the term (usually 1 year) of the account in advance, and if you withdraw your money before the end, you forfeit all interest. I have had one account at Shinhan, and one at SC. I think you'll look at about 3~4% interest.

Another couple of options are 제일(SC)'s new accounts:

They have an account (called DoDream) that you can use as your regular banking account, but any money left in for 31 days receives interest (First in, First out).

If you already have a few million won sitting around, they also have CD's (I believe they are calling them Timed Deposits or something similar) that are fairly customizable. As far as I can tell, this is a new concept in Korea so finding a bank employee with information about them may be difficult. Also, interest in Korea is pretty low at the moment, so the CD's aren't worth much; maybe 4% for a short term CD, but if the rates for the country go up, they'll go up for your account as well.

Whichever account(s) you choose, I suggest trying to find a bank branch that can provide good information in English. I have had my best luck in CoEx (KBStar and SC).

**Edit** Nearly forgot, the banks have more investment centered accounts. Again, you should fix the term. The one I talked to my friend about was at Shinhan. They mostly invest into the stable companies, Samsung, Posco, and the interest is pretty strong, but it is still variable, much like the CD's, and if the investment tanks, you could be in the same boat as the US 401Kers are in now.

[Murakano]

[Gnod]

I found out the SC Ace Check Card only works at ATM's outside of Korea.

However, you can get a credit card from them that does work internationally. I had to open a fixed deposit savings account (because I had been with SC for less than 6 months) as part of the deal. The fixed deposit account had the option of either being 300k per month for 1 year or 100k per month for 3 years (these were minimums). It comes with 4.1% interest.

[RnH]

Great! Thanks so much for all the advice guys! I've been surfing a few websites of a few banks, and I found a money market account with HSBC in Korea which is supposed to have a slightly higher interest rate..anyone know anything about this?

Also, how does the tax work on your interest earned? Will we have to do a seperate tax form or something? Or will the bank just take off tax for us? At the moment, our boss just sorts out our tax..who knows if she's even paying it!

Thanks so much!

[madhusudan]

Recently opened an account at a smaller bank 푸른저축은행 (www.prsb.co.kr) because of a slightly better interest rate at 5.1%. There aren't but a few locations for this bank in Seoul, but the accounts are still insured up to 50,000,000 won. I chose to do fixed deposits for a year, but they have six month accounts as well.

Otherwise, like other posters have said, almost every bank will do it for you.

The tax, in my experience, is paid for you by the bank. They'll tell you the total interest to be earned and then the amount with tax deducted when you sign up.

As far as your work paying your income tax, yeah, you might ask for a receipt that it's been paid, I think at the end of each calendar year. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I did have one experience where tax was withheld from my salary and not paid to the gov't. Also check that you actually have insurance, if that's being deducted form your pay.

[RnH]

Great! Thanks so much for all the advice!

Sorry, may be a stupid question but I have no idea about this investing stuff - but could you perhaps arrange an investment over the phone and do a bank transfer and fax the documents to the bank concerned? It's just that we live in a small city right in the south of Korea, with only a couple banks, and if they can't offer us something good, we'd like to try some other banks. For example, we hear that Tomato bank has a slightly higher interest rate? (not sure about a bank that has "tomato" as it's name, but anyway!) But obviously there is no tomato bank in our town!

Thanks so much!

[Palladium]

What is SC? Standard Chartered?!?