NZ Banks no longer accepting cheques

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › NZ Banks no longer accepting cheques

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#2699820 29-Apr-2021 19:08

kingdragonfly:
BlinkyBill:

I guess we’re of-topic here, but it is not correct to say all US passport holders need to file tax returns.

My daughter is a US citizen but lives in NZ, she does not meet any of the requirements necessary for lodging a tax return and so does not do so.

I believe there is a bi-lateral tax agreement between NZ and US which balances taxation between both countries. Not saying this agreement makes obviates the need to file US tax returns, but does mean appropriate tax is payable only.

This is a complex area and I am far from an expert, but the nightmare scenario you outline is probably not correct.

Seriously even though she makes no US income, or even ever did, I'd STRONGLY advise you post a message in an ex-pat forum (not here)

FBAR is separate from the IRS, and they have very scary penalties also.

"What happens if you don’t file an FBAR?

Willful failure to file an FBAR is a felony punishable by 5 years in prison. If that doesn’t get your intention, the civil penalties certainly will.

While few people are actually prosecuted criminally, the IRS does routinely impose the civil penalties for willful failure to file FBAR. The penalties for a willful violation are the greater of $124,588 or 50% of the account value at the time of the violation. Although the IRS can look back 8 years, often the IRS will impose a penalty for just 1 year.

The IRS believes that if you failed to file an FBAR and you or your tax preparer checked the “no” box on the Schedule B question asking about foreign accounts, your actions were “willful.” Non-willful violations are subject to penalties up to $12,459 per account per year."

Sure, but you said “All US passport holders” and many US passport holders don’t need to. I paid nearly $7k USD to receive the advice I was provided with.

Just looked it up and only need to file an FBAR if the total value in overseas to US accounts is greater than US$10k.

Rikkitic

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#2699827 29-Apr-2021 19:36

Handle9:

Lol. Man convicted of credit card fraud and share scams complains about banks.

It was a long time ago but it's still funny

How so? Are you suggesting that someone who has committed a crime once remains guilty forever? That doesn't seem very enlightened.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

tieke

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#2699832 29-Apr-2021 19:49

mattwnz:

freitasm:

Not sure about your friend's situation but I was paid from Amazon Affiliates via Payoneer (aff link) for years.

Thanks will look into that as a solution.
The US Amazon Affiliates system appears to still only pay by cheque to NZ, and sends cheques in USD to NZ affiliates by mail. They only pay via bbak transfer to 55 countries by bank (excludes NZ), which is odd, considering other companies such as Paypal or Stripe, can pay by direct credit into bank account.

As also mentioned, Transferwise/Wise is also an option: it's like other foreign currency debit cards that people take on holiday, in that after you transfer money to your Wise account and you can then put it into different currency "bins" (ie GBP, USD, AUD etc) while paying the appropriate conversion fee.

What is useful about Wise is that as well as getting a credit card that you can use to spend your funds, they have appropriate bank account numbers associated with each of the currencies, that you can then use for deposits. ie I can give my personal Wise US bank account number to Amazon and any funds they deposit into that account will appear in my US balance, which I can then transfer to my NZ balance or bank at my leisure.

antonknee

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#2699833 29-Apr-2021 19:50

richms:

Nothing stopping anyone else starting up a payment system based on vauge promises of payment based on paperwork then they can go for it. The idea of cheques is absurd.

To be fair, cash money as a system is somewhat ridiculous too - a piece of paper with pretty pictures that has value because someone once said you could swap one for a lump of gold. But cheques are next level stupid IMO, practically zero security and they take forever to clear, and that’s before you get to the ones made of rubber.

I have to laugh at this comment from Grey Power on the cheque issue - “I... don’t understand this madness over technology, we’re happy to live without it.” Well I don’t understand the madness over cheques, and I’m happy to live without it.

Handle9

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#2699841 29-Apr-2021 20:40

Rikkitic:

Handle9:

Lol. Man convicted of credit card fraud and share scams complains about banks.

It was a long time ago but it's still funny

How so? Are you suggesting that someone who has committed a crime once remains guilty forever? That doesn't seem very enlightened.

I thought we were talking about Damien Grant, not someone enlightened? His views are pretty out there.

kingdragonfly

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#2699849 29-Apr-2021 21:21

tieke:As also mentioned, Transferwise/Wise is also an option: it's like other foreign currency debit cards that people take on holiday, in that after you transfer money to your Wise account and you can then put it into different currency "bins" (ie GBP, USD, AUD etc) while paying the appropriate conversion fee.

What is useful about Wise is that as well as getting a credit card that you can use to spend your funds, they have appropriate bank account numbers associated with each of the currencies, that you can then use for deposits. ie I can give my personal Wise US bank account number to Amazon and any funds they deposit into that account will appear in my US balance, which I can then transfer to my NZ balance or bank at my leisure.

Unless I'm mistaken, Transferwise/Wise can only be used for electronic transfers.

Also there's no mentioned of New Zealand in Wise's on-line help system.

From the Wise website

"Can I pay with cash, or by cheque?

No, please don’t ever send us cash or cheques, we can’t accept or process them.

We also can’t take payment over the phone."

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quickymart

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#2699873 29-Apr-2021 22:01

If you're a US citizen who filed taxes in the US in the last financial year (as my wife did - she has dual citizenship) you get the stimulus cheques - she's currently awaiting her third one.

This change is going to affect her as well, so hopefully this one arrives before the cutoff date.

She used to work for a bank many years ago and NZ is sort of seen as a testing ground for new banking technologies, which is why we use things like EFTPOS so much and cheques so little (as pointed out above, they are very slow and outdated). Sadly, cheque usage is still quite high in the US - I was stunned when I saw how many people were taking time to write them out at the supermarket last time I was there, and these weren't all elderly people, either.

mattwnz

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#2699900 30-Apr-2021 00:20

quickymart:

If you're a US citizen who filed taxes in the US in the last financial year (as my wife did - she has dual citizenship) you get the stimulus cheques - she's currently awaiting her third one.

This change is going to affect her as well, so hopefully this one arrives before the cutoff date.

She used to work for a bank many years ago and NZ is sort of seen as a testing ground for new banking technologies, which is why we use things like EFTPOS so much and cheques so little (as pointed out above, they are very slow and outdated). Sadly, cheque usage is still quite high in the US - I was stunned when I saw how many people were taking time to write them out at the supermarket last time I was there, and these weren't all elderly people, either.

They also have very low value coins too, where NZ got rid of many of the smaller coins. I think the US still uses a 1 cent coin. I wonder if it is because eftpos isn't really a big thing in the US, that more people use cheques. The alternative to cheques and cash in the US would be credit/debit cards, which you have another company potentially taking a cut of the transaction. Transaction fees as a percentage of the transaction doesn't occur with either cheques or cash, or eftpos.

mattwnz

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#2699903 30-Apr-2021 00:25

antonknee:

richms:

Nothing stopping anyone else starting up a payment system based on vauge promises of payment based on paperwork then they can go for it. The idea of cheques is absurd.

To be fair, cash money as a system is somewhat ridiculous too - a piece of paper with pretty pictures that has value because someone once said you could swap one for a lump of gold. But cheques are next level stupid IMO, practically zero security and they take forever to clear, and that’s before you get to the ones made of rubber.

I have to laugh at this comment from Grey Power on the cheque issue - “I... don’t understand this madness over technology, we’re happy to live without it.” Well I don’t understand the madness over cheques, and I’m happy to live without it.

Bitcoin is just 1s and 0s and it's value seems to have no relation to anything except speculation. At least cash is tied to particular country and it's currency.

kingdragonfly

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#2699958 30-Apr-2021 08:08

Updated: what I can see this is a list of affected banks

ANZ -------- May 2021
ASB -------- August 2021
BNZ -------- July 2021
HSBC -------- June 2021
Rabobank -------- June 2021
The Co-operative bank -------- May 2021
TSB -------- June 2021
Westpac -------- June 2021
SBS -------- June 2021

Since I live outside of Auckland, I'll need to set up a virtual account in the US, which may or may not work, because of anti-money laundering laws.

It appears Indian banks, such as "Bank of Baroda" and "Bank of India" will continue to accept checks. This isn't surprising since cheques are extremely common in India.

I sent an email to "Heartland Bank Limited" to see what their policy is.

I suspect if you are outside of Auckland, you're pretty much screwed.

kingdragonfly

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#2700030 30-Apr-2021 11:02

I sent BNZ a message regarding IRS checks, and a link from the IRS saying they don't do electronic transfers to non-US accounts.

A "we know but is sounds like a you problem" reply from BNZ:

"Thank you for your message in regard to depositing foreign cheques.

I can advise that the last day our customers can deposit domestic cheques and foreign cheques is 30 June 2021. After this date we will be unable to accept and process these.

We are aware that there are USD treasury cheques issued by the United States Government for pensions, social security, benefit payments, tax refunds etc, and that in some instances there may be ways to receive these funds by electronic credits depending on the federal paying agencies.

Most US federal agencies prefer to make direct deposits into local accounts than issuing cheques, and we have been advised that they can sometimes arrange this via Go Direct or Direct Express Debit card - the possible options will depend on the government department who is issuing the funds, and whether they require an account to be held in the US.

If you are unable to arrange for the funds to be deposited through one the other payments options, and can only receive the funds by cheque, I regret to advise that you would need to approach another foreign currency services provider to see if they are still able to accept cheques.

Kind Regards"

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littlehead

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#2700048 30-Apr-2021 11:41

kingdragonfly:

I suspect if you are outside of Auckland, you're pretty much screwed.

If you need to accept foreign cheques then ANZ say they will still accept USD, CAD, GBP and AUD cheques after the domestic cut off, and ASB state that they will still accept all foreign cheques until further notice. Both have branches outside of Auckland. You still have those options.

shk292

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#2700059 30-Apr-2021 11:57

kingdragonfly: I sent BNZ a message regarding IRS checks, and a link from the IRS saying they don't do electronic transfers to non-US accounts.

A "we know but is sounds like a you problem" reply from BNZ:

"Thank you for your message in regard to depositing foreign cheques.

I can advise that the last day our customers can deposit domestic cheques and foreign cheques is 30 June 2021. After this date we will be unable to accept and process these.

We are aware that there are USD treasury cheques issued by the United States Government for pensions, social security, benefit payments, tax refunds etc, and that in some instances there may be ways to receive these funds by electronic credits depending on the federal paying agencies.

Most US federal agencies prefer to make direct deposits into local accounts than issuing cheques, and we have been advised that they can sometimes arrange this via Go Direct or Direct Express Debit card - the possible options will depend on the government department who is issuing the funds, and whether they require an account to be held in the US.

If you are unable to arrange for the funds to be deposited through one the other payments options, and can only receive the funds by cheque, I regret to advise that you would need to approach another foreign currency services provider to see if they are still able to accept cheques.

Kind Regards"

I think it's mentioned above, but a Wise account would seem the obvious answer: https://wise.com/nz/multi-currency-account/#coverage-bankdetails

kingdragonfly

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#2700101 30-Apr-2021 13:09

littlehead: If you need to accept foreign cheques then ANZ say they will still accept USD, CAD, GBP and AUD cheques after the domestic cut off, and ASB state that they will still accept all foreign cheques until further notice. Both have branches outside of Auckland. You still have those options.

Hello ANZ and ASB!

Cheers littlehead.

I wonder what will happen with "traveler's checks."

They're not popular with Kiwis, but elderly Americans tourists use them a lot. Obviously with COVID, they're not really making the rounds much, but I'd expect it to pick up in 2022.

There even an "American Express" traveller's check NZ webpage.

In my city, it only lists NZ banks as "Travelers Cheque Exchanges"

From Investopedia

"They are purchased for set amounts and can be used to buy goods or services or be exchanged for cash. If your traveler's check is lost or stolen it can readily be replaced. Once widely used, traveler's checks have largely been supplanted today by prepaid debit cards and credit cards."

quickymart

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#2700119 30-Apr-2021 13:57

Oh God I'd forgotten all about those things!

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