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perhaps a noob question, but why not just allow a bank to open for people with a joint account with one person in US and one in El Salvador? Person in US depos
by frankbreetz 5y ago
perhaps a noob question, but why not just allow a bank to open for people with a joint account with one person in US and one in El Salvador?
Person in US deposits money, person in El Salvador withdraws money.
This seems much simpler then making BTC a national currency.
- billytetrud 5y agoYou might want to think through the logistics of having a person or a group of el Salvadorian government officials living in every foreign country in the world handing out cash to people. What you're talking about is recreating an international banking network. That's not exactly easy peasy
- betwixthewires 5y agoOK, so person a deposits cash, person b in another country withdraws cash. Eventually bank location a will have an excess of cash and bank location b will have a shortage of cash. How do you square that? Now think about the fact that 25% of el Salvador's GDP is remittances from the US. Country wide, banks have a shortage of cash deposits every Friday. Bank location a will need to eventually ship that cash to bank location b, and maintain a channel to keep the money flowing. It's not that simple, if it were that simple that's how banks would do it. There are logistics involved.
- rchaud 5y agoThe bank would need to have branches in both El Salvador and the US for this to be doable, would it not?
- el-salvador 5y agoU.S. banks usually require foreigners to visit a branch for opening an account. For Salvadorans getting a US tourist visa is a complicated and expensive process. About half of the applicants get denied. And the application costs about the half of a monthly minimum wage. Salvadorans who depend on income sent by a US relative would have even less chances to get a visa approval.
- frankbreetz 5y agoWhy not use a bank in El Salvador?
- el-salvador 5y agoThis reminds me of something back in high school, here in El Salvador, one of my classmates had his parents living in the United States. His mom had given him a U.S. debit card which he could use to withdraw money from the local ATMs.
- frankbreetz 5y agoYes, was that legal? As far as I know most remittance is between family members, so why doesn't everyone do this?
- el-salvador 5y agoI don't know if legal. But probably against the terms of service of the credit card issuer. At least one of my cards has "non-transferable" text on the back.