Even I don't know what else awaits us. There were shopping tours to Milan, vaccine tourism too, now tours for issuing Visa and Mastercard cards in foreign banks have begun to appear.
In this text, I will talk about my independent experience of opening a bank account abroad in Turkey . Without a local residence permit (I'm just a visiting tourist), with a Russian passport and in one day. Now I have a magical Mastercard card that works all over the world and with which I can pay for online subscriptions, buy airline tickets and even accept swift transfers in dollars from relatives in Russia.
There are several banks where you can open a card in Turkey for a non-resident. Everyone has the same questions and difficulties – both in opening an account and using a card.
Can Russians open a card in Turkey?
Yes, Turkish banks opened accounts for Russians without a residence permit even before the events of February 2022. Even now, despite the unprecedented flow of applicants. The only thing is that you cannot open a card in Turkey remotely. You need to walk with your feet, stand in lines and communicate in Turkish or English.
Not all banks welcome new foreign clients with open arms. Moreover, even in different branches of the same bank, you may be denied the first one, and accepted the second one.
My friend went through 4 branches in Istanbul in a day and was refused everywhere. I flew to Antalya and without any questions submitted documents at the first office of the same bank! This does not mean that it is no longer possible to open a plastic card in Istanbul – after all, I did it a week after his adventures.
I want to say something important:TRY. Try in Istanbul, try in Antalya, but at least in Izmir. Go through 3, 5, 10 offices, don't give up after failures. The process of opening an account is simple. The difficulty lies in finding the right branch. And, perhaps, in communication in English or through a translator on the phone, Russian is not served here.
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< p style=" margin: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px;">I’ll tell you right away on which sites to book hotels abroad – both for such trips “for a card”, and for ordinary tourism, and for anything:
Even more services, but suitable for finding housing only inside Russia, in this article. |
Which card can non-residents open in Turkey?
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You can only issue a debit card, in most cases multi-currency (lira, dollars, euros) and with a deposit. That is, for 1-3 months, the money you deposit will be frozen in the account and cannot be spent. These are the conditions. And the size of the deposit and its currency do not even depend on the bank, but on the branch or a specific manager. These are the realities.
Here are three banks that regularly issue cards to Russians in 2022:
- Denizbank
- Ziraat Bankasi
- VakifBank
Deposit requirements vary.
Today they can announce an amount of 10,000 lire, and tomorrow – already 50,000; $5,000 or $10,000; €2000 or €5000. The most comfortable deposit of 10,000 liras (about 70,000 rubles) is in Denizbank. In Ziraat, most often they ask for 30 thousand liras, and in Vakif it also happens that you need to pay only 300-500 liras for issuing a card.
The fact is that there are no clear regulations, and the manager determines the amount of the deposit . One pattern I've noticed from my experience and online discussions is that if the bank does not want to open an account or has exceeded the plan/quota for non-residents (if any), then it will either refuse directly or set a condition of 10 thousand dollars. Although, conditionally, yesterday I opened it to that guy from the chat for 10,000 lyre
See. Arriving in Istanbul at the end of March, I had already read chats and forums on the topic “how to open a bank card abroad” and was sure that there was nothing to catch in the city, everything was sorted out by IT people. But still I went to the nearest office of Denizbank, where the employee agreed to accept the documents upon making a deposit of $5,000 or 50,000 lira. A good sign, I thought, at least not rebuffed. But too much for a deposit. I walked fifteen minutes to another Deniz … and then my aspirations and managerial plans to attract clients coincided. We concluded a mutually beneficial agreement and sealed it with a Mastercard plastic card (which, however, has many disadvantages, which I will discuss below).
What documents will you definitely need to open a card in a Turkish bank:
- International passport
- Russian passport
- Turkish Inn (done in two bills)
More sim card and cash for deposit. Residence permit is not required. Deniz issues personalized plastic on the same day. Ziraat and Vakif are releasing unnamed ones, in 5-7 days you need to come to pick up a personalized one.
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Do world maps work in Turkey? And in what other countries? Can I withdraw dollars from them? All questions answered in this article. |
How to open a bank account in Turkey? My Experience
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Here is my personal experience on how to open a Turkish bank account for a Russian citizen.
What you need to do BEFORE going to the bank:
- Make a Turkish TIN.This is a simple online application that assigns you a local tax number. Here is the site: https://ivd.gib.gov.tr/. I advise you to fill out from a laptop. In the column “Address” you can write anything in Turkey, I left the address of the hotel. In the “Phone number” column, you can enter a foreign number, but without the telephone code of the country. Fill everything in Latin and CAPITAL LETTERS, because in Turkey there are misunderstandings with the letter i, caps lock will help to avoid them.
This is how the main page of the site for issuing a TIN looks like. The required box is marked with arrows
- Buy a local SIM card. Operators Turkcell, Vodafone – no difference. Good price – 300 lire for 20 GB of internet. I met several people who opened a card for a Russian SIM card, but SMS for activation did not reach them. They tied it to the local one at the bank branch. Another thing is that a Turkish SIM card works only for 90 days, and even returning to Russia, I personally will have to change the number to a Russian one anyway.
- Withdraw cash for a deposit.Lira, dollars, euros, whatever you want. You cannot transfer money to a deposit, you can only deposit cash. Our text about the Mir map will tell you where to withdraw lira from it in Turkey.
- It is possible to make a certified translation of the Russian passport. Rarely, but sometimes they ask. I would only do it if the bank told me so. In this case, you need to go to a translation agency (notar), translate and certify your passport. At a cost of approximately 250-300 lira.
I opened an account with Denizbank in Istanbul with a deposit of 10,000 lira for 1 month at a rate of 17.5%. To open by default, they suggested Mastercard (probably, there should be Visa, but I didn’t ask).
How it happened:
1. Came to the bank branch and informed the guard about his intention. They sent me to the manager on the second floor – I spoke with him through Google translator in Turkish (few people here speak English). He made photocopies of the passport of the Russian Federation and foreign countries, thus compiling an application, and … said to come the next day, today there are no places. It was after lunch, so if you come in the morning, the probability of receiving a card on the same day is higher. Here is a link to the office where I made the invoice https://goo.gl/maps/K7t7qgq2QMnm68dV9; and here is a link to the branch in Antalya, where it turned out to open the map to a friend https://goo.gl/maps/qsnYcJwit58YWwDW9.
2. The next day I was at the department at 9:00. Further, the standard procedures for concluding an agreement and entering data. By the way, the bank needs your registration address in Russia, it is driven into the system. I was asked to simply write by hand in transliteration, but someone is required to provide a certified translation.
3. About 45 minutes on the chair where I signed everything and downloaded the bank's mobile application, a couple of minutes at the cash desk where I deposited 10,000 lira in cash for a deposit and another 1,000 for spending, and they gave me a physical card with a chip and my name, valid until 2030. The card is tied to an account in lira, euros and dollars – everything can be withdrawn at the bank's ATMs. There are no rubles and there never is. The application is adequate and understandable at first glance, there is an English language.
On this quest called “is it possible to open a card in Turkey” is over, with a positive outcome. I immediately paid at the coffee shop, withdrew some lira from Deniz's ATM – everything worked. In the evening I paid for Netflix (I have a Turkish account), the service accepted the card. And such grace spilled over the body…
It would seem that I am now a happy person. With a bank card legitimate in the eyes of the whole world. But in less than a month, I talked to Deniz's support team for an hour or more, and went to the office three times. Because Turkish banking is one of a kind… and this is not at all about the convenience of Tinkoff. Now I will devote a whole section to it.
By the way, opening Union Pay in Turkey does not make sense, someone on the forums asks why. About virtual cards, too, here, according to the sensations, there is no such thing – my Denizbank card could not even be linked to ApplePay.
My experience of using a Deniz bank card – pros and cons
First things first! opening an account in Turkey? Certainly. Ten times yes. Somehow I missed the deadline (1 month) with a foreign brokerage account, I had to pay a fine (1000 rubles).
Let's start with the pluses.
+ The card is multicurrency — you can operate with dollars, euros and lira.
+ Swift transfers from Russia reach! That is, in accordance with the new law of the Russian Federation, you can send up to $10,000 to your foreign account, and they come to Deniz's card without any problems. We go to the cashier and cash out. A Tinkoff card is ideal here, this can be said to be the only large bank in Russia that allows you to make such a payment (Sberbank, VTB, Alfa, Otkritie – everything is past). I received the money on the same day. I suspect that Swift will be fine from other countries.
+ There is an English-speaking support service! They say that there are also Russian-speaking employees for Russians … I'm not sure.
+ Not a bad mobile application.
+ You can convert dollars into lira at a good bank rate inside the application.
< p>+ Smart ATMs: if the withdrawal is requested in lira, the money is debited from the lira account, and if in dollars, then from the dollar account. No need to switch.
+ You can pay for online subscriptions. To do this, you need to make Yes opposite Internet Transactions in the application or call the hotline and ask an employee. For some reason, by default, the operation of the card for foreign online services is disabled in the settings.
+ You can freely pay in Turkey and, in theory, abroad.
+ Anything you like can be done with cards of Turkish banks (not only Deniz, but also Ziraat, Vakif), but WITH TWO HUGE BOLD BUT.
And this:
— Cards of any Turkish banks prohibit transactions over 500 lira on sites without 3d-secure! Let me explain: you will not be able to pay more than 500 lira ($33) on services where there is no SMS confirmation of payment, which hold money and write off later. At least Airbnb and Booking go into this basket if you choose the option to pay on the site.
– Stupid limits! You can spend no more on cards per day – attention – 1000 lira. 68 dollars. Well, that's funny.
And never, please, NEVER, set limits in the application for the Deniz card, as in Tinkoff. By default, the limit is 1000 lira per day for purchases. I decided, well, you never know, I'll bet 500. Later I learned that it is possible to reduce the limit, but not to raise it! Moreover, this issue cannot be resolved with the support service by phone, you need to go to the branch. And not in the nearest to you, but in WHERE YOU OPENED THE CARD and write an application to increase the limit. I opened an account in Istanbul. Now I am in Antalya. Do I need to describe the degree of my indignation at this bank policy or add that a ticket to Istanbul costs 550 liras?
From the minuses:
– Paypass (contactless payment) can be used no more than 5 once a day. Then just insert the card into the terminal and enter the pincode.
— The commission for a swift transfer from Russia to Turkey by Deniz is a fixed $7 + $0.5% of the total transfer amount. No comment.
— $340 daily limit for withdrawing dollars from ATMs.
As a result. It is possible for a Russian to open a card in Turkey. Even a tourist. All you need is your desire, perseverance and a certain amount of cash, which the bank will gladly accept – Denizbank, Ziraat or Vakif. Turkish bank cards are good in some ways, frankly bad in others. Now for me it is suitable for swift transfers, paying for online subscriptions and just to maintain solvency in Turkey. However, I am not at all satisfied with the limits – what to do with them at all? After all, even a long-distance flight cannot be bought. I am silent about the fact that the same Airbnb cards do not work at all.
In a word, we observe and adapt further. Maybe you, at the time of reading the article, know a way to raise the limits on Turkish cards? Write in the comments and ask any questions.