Anyone happen to have a list of Portuguese banks that are willing to work with US citizens? I assume it is not an especially long list.
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Do you mean US citizens anywhere, or US citizens in Portugal with either a visa or residence permit?
The former. Is there a significant difference in how that’s being handled, though? Seems like FACTA would apply either way, making the American fairly toxic to deal with, resident or not.
I think most will do? I know for sure that Santander (Totta) does work.
Hey,
Can you tell me why exactly a bank should be located in Portugal? Can it be another EU country? I suppose you are looking for SEPA payment possibilities?
If you are not limited just to Portugal, I might suggest a couple of solutions. It’s a bit hard for US citizens to get onboarded with EU financial institutions, but it’s doable.
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need a depository account to hold shares in a GV fund. it has to be Portuguese.
I think most banks will, Millennium being the most important exception I’ve heard about.
These days many people are choosing Bison Bank since they can open accounts remotely, so no need to travel to Portugal—which is still a challenge for many.
FYI, BiG is willing to open an account without a visit now. But their portal is Portuguese only. So this may be changing.
Bison doesn’t have credit cards, which is a negative. “Next year”
Hello. I didnt introduce myself already, Im Teresa ApolĂłnia Portuguese Lawyer, that most of the work is international. I know Abanca works with US citizens, I have US client that have oppened with them. Im not sure if I can pass here the name of the private bank manager and has been helpful.
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Interesting. Bison seems to be really popular but I am concerned that they are Chinese and not so stable, the regulator made them do a capital call in June. I can contact the bank directly for a contact if you are not comfortable sharing. Thank you!
Hi Teresa, you can always share the details via private message 
Please do not share personal contact details on the public forum. But you are welcome to send direct messages to other users.
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@jb4422 it’s true that they have Hong Kong ownership and isn’t the most solid bank in Portugal. But for the purposes of depositing your fund units I think the risk is quite low.
If you were doing the €1M capital transfer with plans to park the cash in a bank account it would be another story!
That brings up an interesting point. How are deposits generally insured in Portugal? Is there something similar to FDIC in the U.S.? Wondering what a maximum insured deposit amount would be?
I don’t disagree but if there are other options, why not use 'em?
abanca doesn’t look that bad on first glance, it’s a spanish mid-tier bank with branches in the USA and portugal, it’s large enough to have Fitch/Moody’s ratings which are admittedly not great but not terrible either, and having that US arm may have some upsides, like it used to for HSBC where your HSBC Premier card meant walking into any HSBC branch anywhere and being instantly accepted and actually being able to ask for emergency cash and assistance even. Maybe, maybe not, who knows.
Has any US citizen on this site used Abanca for GV investment funds? There is the money transfer but we had also heard something about the bank’s willingness to become the keeper/holder of the shares in the investment fund on behalf of their US citizen clients or something of the sort.
They indicated to me that they would, if you wanted to show up onsite to open the account - they were not willing to waive the in-person KYC requirement.
Thank you jb4422!
I don’t know but I imagine the answer is “not enough to matter”.