7 reasons you want a non-CRS bank account in Bakai with an elite VISA Infinite card!
I opened a non-CRS bank account in the Kyrgyz bank Bakai remotely. I tested international transactions, crypto top-ups, and payments using their elite VISA Infinite card. I decided to summarize the reasons why you want this account.
1. Opening a bank account without the need for residency or other connections to Kyrgyzstan
In most countries, you need local residency or other connections (employment contract, study, etc.) to open a bank account. This applies to all EU and Latin American countries, including Paraguay and Uruguay. As a Slovak citizen, most banks in Slovakia will not open a bank account for me because I do not have residency in Slovakia (fortunately, I do not need a Slovak bank account because I have a better 🙂
An exception is Georgia, where you do not need local residency or any connection to Georgia to use Georgian banking services. Unfortunately, Georgia has signed the CRS agreement and has thus become a member of the global spying cartel with automatic reporting. Suppose you are not a happy tax resident in a non-CRS country, such as Paraguay, and you do not have a Georgian bank account opened in your tax residence in a non-CRS country (which we will be happy to help you with). In that case, you can expect that it will only be a matter of time before your Georgian bank starts automated reporting to the tax office of your CRS country.
2. Kyrgyzstan has not signed and does not plan to sign the CRS
Unlike most countries, Kyrgyzstan has not joined (and does not plan to join) the global CRS spying cartel (which includes all EU countries).
Paraguay has not signed the CRS either, but there are the following problems you will face if you want a full-fledged bank account in Paraguay:
- To open a bank account in Paraguay, you need temporary or permanent residence in Paraguay (we will be happy to help you with this).
- To open a full-fledged Paraguayan bank account (without limits), you must declare local Paraguayan income, which is also taxed. Without local Paraguayan income, you can only open a basic bank account in Paraguay with a monthly limit of USD 1,000 (I recommend Banco Familiar, ITAÚ, or UENO).
- To apply for a USD account or a better VISA/Mastercard card at a Paraguayan bank, you must be a solvent client with a sufficiently high (declared) income.
And you can only dream of having an EURO account at a Paraguayan bank.
You don’t have to face any of these problems if you decide to open a non-CRS bank account with Bakai Bank in Kyrgyzstan – you don’t need any connection to Kyrgyzstan or local income, and you get a full-featured account without any restrictions.
3. Account held in multiple currencies (USD, EUR, KGS, KZT, TRY, RUB, AED, and CNY)
Bakai Bank allows you to easily open a bank account (with one click in their mobile app) in the following currencies:
- USD – US dollar
- EUR – Euro
- KGS – Kyrgyz som
- KZT – Kazakhstani tenge
- TRY – Turkish lira
- RUB – Russian ruble
- AED – United Arab Emirates dirham
- CNY – Chinese yuan
You can receive foreign transfers directly in all of these currencies.
To receive EURO transactions, you can use the correspondent bank Landesbank Baden in Germany (SOLADEST), Raiffeisen Bank in Vienna (RZBAATWW), or Aktif Yatirim Bankasi in Istanbul.
My international test transfers were not completed within 24 hours (as with the Bank of Georgia), but they all arrived within a few days.
4. Elite VISA Infinite card
What surprised me most about the Bakai bank account is the elite VISA Infinite card, which you get for USD 120/year. With the highest Georgian SOLO Club account, you get a VISA Signature card, but Bakai immediately gives you a VISA Infinite card. You can find out about the benefits of this card directly on the bank’s website or the VISA website.
One key benefit of VISA Infinite is collision damage waiver (CDW) insurance when you pay with this card.
After opening an account with Bakai, you will receive two VISA Infinite cards in USD and an embossed card in Kyrgyz som. All cards can be topped up via the Bakai mobile app. I tried using the VISA Infinite card in Slovakia/Austria, and everything worked on the first try.
5. Crypto friendly
Kyrgyzstan does not have a crypto infrastructure as developed as Georgia. Here are three ways you can send crypto to your Bakai bank account:
- Through our Signal group P2P Exchange for Bakai owners, we voluntarily connect our clients with a Bakai bank account and want to trade crypto. Crypto transactions can be done P2P, with fiat cleared through their EUR/USD account in Bakai. We have a similar Signal group for our SOLO bank account clients in the Bank of Georgia, and it works great. This is probably the safest and most convenient way to trade crypto.
- Through the Kyrgyz exchange Bitbanker / ElCrypto, you can do KYC on any document (including a Paraguayan ID card). For withdrawals to Kyrgyz banks (in KGS, USD.k, RUB.k) to work, you must go through the KYC+ process, which requires signing a physical contract in Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek). Withdrawals in USD.k are possible to international VISA cards with a fixed fee of USD 50 per withdrawal.
- SimpleKey Solutions (which does not yet have a crypto license) charges a 3.5% fee for deposits in USDT, with a minimum deposit of 5000 USD.
6. Option to open an account entirely remotely
A bank account in Kyrgyz Bakai can be opened entirely remotely based on an apostilled power of attorney and a copy of your passport. We have tested both regional and international apostille services. You will then need to fill out a KYC document in Kyrgyz or Russian (we will fill it out for you based on the information you provide).
After opening the account, you will need to pay USD 1,000 to the bank and an annual fee of USD 120 for VISA Infinite. This fee does not include the costs of apostille certification of documents and opening a bank account based on a power of attorney.
7. We will be happy to help you!
If you are interested in opening a bank account in Bakai and preparing the necessary powers of attorney and apostille of your documents, please do not hesitate to contact us. We want to launch this service in the coming months. Before the launch, we would like to finalize two things:
- Enable clients to open a verified account (KYC+) at the Kyrgyz crypto exchange Bitbanker / ElCrypto based on a power of attorney (which is currently not possible remotely).
- Reduce the cost of opening a bank account through our local broker. Currently, the total cost of opening an account is approximately $2,500.
If you leave us a message, we will contact you as soon as we have resolved this issue.