peteforde

Hi

Whats is a good bank to go with in the US. I will be moving there for work on an L1 visa. I will need a cheqing account, it would also be nice to get credit card so I can build up so i credit. At the moment I working in Canada and banking with RBC only because they gave me a cc when I opened the account. Anything like this in the US and California in particular.

thanks

Noorah101

Each bank is different. The best way to get started on your credit is to get a secured card through whichever bank you choose. I bank at Wells Fargo and have no problems (I'm a USC but my foreign husband had none either).

Rene

tom169

Wells Fargo were good with us when I first arrived in the USA. Since moved to a credit union.

GeoffM

I'm fine with Wells Fargo for general banking. Took a while but I opened an account with them on Day 2 of me being in the US. As a loan company they have been a whole different story for me and I won't ever even bother with them again for loan purposes.

See also the threads on American Express global transfer, if it's not too late. Otherwise you may have to put down a deposit on your credit card (ie secured, as Noorah says) and that becomes your credit line. After a while theoretically you qualify for an unsecured one with a slightly larger credit line.

AndyMan74

My wife(green card) and I(US citizen) walked into a BOA the day after arriving in Florida and met with a very nice lady who opened us a core checking account and a credit card each ($1000 limit each) so we were quite pleasently surprised. We had alot of paperwork and ID's and the BOA lady was very impressed I had my original SS card after being in UK for the last 18 years. One thing we did fib about was a residential address and gave her a UPS mailbox one. I'm sure she knew this but didn't say anything.....I guess we made a good impression.