This June, a retired American reader asked me to open a bank account for her.
Her US banks had spent years making her life difficult, and every bank she approached on her own had said no.
She wanted her life savings at a bank with no reason to shut her out.
On paper, she should have been an easy client.
In practice, almost every document needed a second round:
Her proof of address wasn’t in the format the bank wanted.
The reference letter from her local bank couldn’t be confirmed: nobody picked up when the new bank called.
The review took so long that her utility bill became too old to use, and she had to send a new one.
None of that was her doing.
She sent everything we asked for, every time.
In late August, two months after we started, her account was approved.
She now holds a private account at one of the best banks I know.
Here she is, speaking about her experience herself:
Last September, I wrote about the document stack that you need when you move abroad.
Those are the “admin papers” for the move itself.
Today is the second stack: the “money documents” for the bank.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
The complete document stack, in the order the bank will ask for it
The bank reference letter: why statements get rejected, and the two templates you can hand to your banker
The six questions the bank asks on the onboarding call, and how long it all takes
First, why banks put you through this at all.
Why the bank asks
KYC stands for “know your customer.”
Before any serious bank takes your money, its regulator requires it to prove two things:
That you are who you say you are.
That your money came from somewhere legal.
Every document in this article answers one of those two questions.
And the process works in your favor.
The bank that spent two months checking my reader’s file applies the same checks to every other customer at that bank.
Compliance is what keeps the bank clean, and a clean bank is the entire point of moving your savings abroad.
The banks that ask few questions attract the customers who prefer few questions.
(And you don’t want your retirement at THAT kind of bank.)
All of it is reported, twice.
You file an FBAR with the US Treasury for any year your foreign accounts combined top $10,000, and the bank reports you to the IRS under FATCA.
Legitimate offshore banking is legal (and yes, a little boring).
The KYC file is what makes it that way.
Here’s what belongs in the file, and afterwards you get the templates to download and use.
Takeaway: The bank that asks hard questions before taking your money is the bank you want holding it.
The document stack
The full file is ten documents, and you have most of them already.
Passport photo page. A clean color scan. Every other paper in the file has to match the name on this page exactly.
CV. That might surprise some of you. The bank wants your career and education to explain your money: a retired dentist with $2 million reads differently than a file with no history. I’ve had a bank send a CV back because it didn’t list the client’s education.
Phone number and email. These go on record as the contact details for the account. Use ones you plan to keep for years, not a work email that dies the day you retire.
Proof of residency. The card or visa for the country where you legally live. If you haven’t left the US yet, this part is easy.
Tax numbers. Your Social Security number, always, because you’re American. Plus the tax ID of any country where you’re tax-resident.
Proof of address, under three months old. A utility bill or bank statement showing your name at your address. Two wrinkles here. If the utilities are in your spouse’s name, add your marriage certificate so the bank can connect you to the address. And the three-month requirement means you pull this document fresh when you apply, not when you start collecting. (This is the one my reader had to replace mid-review.)
Your last tax return. It shows your income with your Social Security number on it, which makes it the anchor for everything about your money.
Papers showing where the money was made. Sold a house? The sale contract or the deed. Earned it through a company you own? The ownership papers. Salary or pension? Pay slips or employment records.
Statements showing where the money is now. From the bank or brokerage holding it today. (Moving it over later is its own article.)
A bank reference letter. A short letter from a bank that knows you. It held up my reader’s application, so it gets its own section next.
All ten papers have to match each other.
If the money you deposit is bigger than the income on your tax return, the bank wants the paper that explains the difference (like the deed from a house sale).
Some banks want certified or apostilled copies of specific documents, often the passport or the marriage certificate.
Which ones varies by bank, so wait until yours asks before paying an apostille service.
Takeaway: Nine of the ten can be in your folder today; proof of address is the one you pull fresh when you apply.
The bank reference letter
Your new bank wants a note from a bank that already knows you.
That’s what a bank reference letter is.
A few lines on your current bank’s letterhead saying:
This person has banked with us since 2011 and has been a good customer.
Signed by a real employee, with a phone number.
The new bank will call that person to check the letter is real.
Three things that won’t work:
A balance printout.
An account screenshot.
The form US banks like to offer instead, called a verification of deposit (“VOD”).
None of them carry a person the new bank can call, so all three get rejected.
Go to your branch and ask the manager:
“I need a bank reference letter for opening an account abroad.”
Small banks and credit unions usually write it.
Big banks usually don’t, because there’s no branch manager who knows you, just a call center.
If every bank says no, ask your accountant or your lawyer instead.
A letter from a professional who has worked with you for years does the same job, and banks accept it.
👉 Both letters are pre-written here.
Print them, and you are prepared for what comes next.
Takeaway: A reference letter is only as good as the phone number at the bottom of it.
The interview and the wait
One step remains after the documents:
A short call with the bank.
Every serious bank does this before approving a new client. Someone from the bank asks, you answer.
The six questions:
What is your profession, and what did you study?
What will you use the account for?
Where does your money come from?
Where will you send money, and where will you receive it from?
How much do you plan to keep in the account?
How much will move through it in a year?
You already gave every answer in your file.
The call checks that the person matches the folder. Answer plainly and use the same round numbers.
Then you wait.
Most accounts open within a few weeks.
Some take up to two months in compliance review, like my reader’s did, usually because one document needs a second round.
And everything happens remotely at reputable banks:
The call is a video call, the documents are PDFs, and nobody has to travel anywhere.
Takeaway: Answer the six questions with the same round numbers you put in the file.
What comes next
That’s it.
The whole system is a folder of PDFs and one phone call.
The file decides. Ten documents, and nine can be ready before any bank ever asks.
A reference letter counts only when the bank can call the person who signed it. Balance printouts and screenshots get rejected.
Expect a few weeks, sometimes two months. Everything happens remotely, and a no from one bank says nothing about the next one.
Your step for this week:
Make a folder on your computer called “Bank file.”
One PDF per document, clearly named.
When a bank asks, you answer in minutes instead of weeks.
And if you want the account opened with me preparing and submitting the file, that’s the work I do with clients.
Book a call and we’ll look at your situation.
Appreciate you being here,
— Ben
so if the foreign bank reports to IRS, then we still owe taxes on those funds, correct? is the tax rate any different if the funds are not in US?