OPENING A BANK ACCOUNT IN QUINTANA ROO, MEXICO – PART TWO

If you haven’t already, please read Part One first

On Wednesday, July 1, 2020,  I contacted Paco again and asked him for the status of my card.  I explained that I wanted to schedule a taxi service for July 2, 2020 or July 3, 2020.  Paco responded by saying the card should be ready as promised, but provided me the name and contact number of Lupita, (executive at the bank and accountable for online banking), and asked me to call her to ensure that my card would be ready as scheduled.  On Friday, July 3, 2020, I called Intercam Banco and spoke with Lupita.  She checked on the status of my card and informed me that in fact, my card would be ready later that day.  

I told her what time I would be arriving and thanked her for her time.  At the appointed time, I entered the bank with my identification (passport) and spoke with Lupita. Lupita proceeded to activate my card and contacted Intercam customer service (English speaking representatives), so I could confirm and verify my information.  After this very brief phone call, Lupita continued the process so that I could activate my PIN.  Once this was done, the entire process was complete.  I asked Lupita if my card was now ready to shop on Mercade Libre…she gave me a joyous YES!

It took about 30 minutes to get home.  I immediately jumped on my computer, pulled up the Mercado Libre website and started clicking on the items in my shopping cart.  When I got to the payment page, I was holding my breath, fearing that something would go wrong.  After just a couple of clicks, my order was placed without a hitch!   I am now the proud owner of several bags of Vital Wheat Gluten delivered right to my front door!

We own and have lived in Puerto Aventuras for over six years now and had never wanted or needed a Mexican bank account.  We have always gone directly to the utility companies and deposited several thousand pesos into our accounts once a year and followed the same process to pay our monthly HOA and Colonos fees.  Handling our Mexican finances this way eliminated the need to go to these places every month or to have a bank account.  

Now that we have an account, we will see if all the time and effort was worth it.  We can certainly understand the benefit of being able to make payments and/or purchases online through our bank account. But the verdict is still out on whether it was worth all the time and effort into obtaining the account…vital wheat gluten be damned!  

If you are considering opening a bank account here in Mexico, speak with other people that have a bank account, read different forums, blog posts and social media threads to see what others have to say about their experiences with different banks before you make your decision.

SIDE NOTE: There is one more thing I would like to add to this post that was a HUGE determining factor when deciding about opening an account.  I only felt comfortable opening an account if there were no paper statements of any kind being mailed to my Mexican address.  Let me explain…here in Mexico, utility bills, bills from department stores, etc. are normally hand-delivered by a third-party person (not the postal service...but that's a whole different post 😏) to your Mexican address.  But here is the rub, these bills may or may not make it into your hands.  There have been numerous times we have found bills under a rock, stuffed in someone’s door or in a fence. In other words, you may never get your bill, and we have a mailbox right at our front door.  

Now let me clarify; we have always checked online for our bills, so knowing how much our bill is was never the problem.  However, we did not want our paper bills to just be floating around anywhere in Mexico.  So that was one of the first things we spoke with Intercam bank about.  They assured us that they would NOT be mailing out any paper statements…thank goodness!  

In summary, the process in and of itself was not hard, but rather time consuming and somewhat frustrating.  It's a very different process than opening an account in our home country.  

Regarding needed documents, we checked several bank websites to see the different documents that may be requested for setting up an account.  Then we proceeded to collect all the documents to ensure we had every possible piece of paper when we went to the bank.  

SEE INFORMATION BELOW.

👉Here is a list of the documents we took to the bank to help expedite the process and eliminate a lot of going back and forth:

1. Photos of the front of our condo and building

2. Passport

3. Permanent Resident Card

4. Husband’s INM form and utility bill for our home in the United States (if he is put on the Mexican bank account).  This is for proof of address in the United States

5. CURP card (Mexico equivalent to an SS# from the United States)

6. INAPAM Card (Senior Citizen Card)

7. RFC Number 

8. CFE bill (proof of current address)

9. Telcel bill (proof of current address)

10. Predial receipt (proof of payment on property tax)

11. Name of bank in the USA and account number (for any wire transfers)

12. Regime of our condo (site map of square footage)

13. Opening Fees ($5,000 pesos to $50,000 pesos)

At this point, you may be asking yourself “did the bank actually use or need all these documents?”  The answer is sort of, but again, we took them based on the different bank websites we viewed to ensure we had everything.  We were armed with these documents and had made two copies of everything.  Trust me when I tell you, here in Mexico, it is best to be over-prepared.

👉The documents INTERCAM actually used at the time we opened our account were:

1. Photos of the front of our condo and building.  Which they came and took themselves.  We did take photos ourselves, had made copies and took them to the bank, but they needed to complete this task themselves.

2. Passports

3. Permanent Resident Card

4. Husband’s INM form

5. CFE bill (proof of current address)

6. Name of bank in the USA and account number (for any wire transfers)

7. Regime of our condo

8. Current occupation or previous occupation if retired

9. Opening fees (varies, but currently between $5,000 pesos and $50,000 pesos)

👉The documents INTERCAM bank will need if you are not a permanent resident but still want to open an account with them:

1.    Passport

2.    Your INM form that you had stamped at the airport

3.    Local address where you will be living/visiting

4.    Some type of utility bill from your home country for proof of address

5.    Opening fees (varies, but currently between $5,000 pesos and $50,000 pesos)

👉DISCLAIMER: The information for Part 1 and Part 2 was all correct for Intercam bank at the time of both posts.  There is no guarantee that the process will be the same at the time you open an account at any bank here in Mexico.