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Comment by hn_acc1 | Hacker News Reader

Any suggestions for alternatives? I set up an account and tested a transfer to an out-of-country account, just in case I need to leave the US.. It worked painlessly. But recently, I think they closed my account pending more documents.

Also, any suggestions on reasonably secure bank accounts one can hold without citizenship / residency? Swiss?

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I would suggest Revolut, but my experience with them has been similar to Wise. I have a locked Revolut account with funds in it that I can't access because I moved address.

Do you think you'll eventually get your money back ? I got my funds locked up in a neobank once and it tooks weeks to get it back and there was almost no support available

I think so, but I have to jump through a few hoops first and that's been painful.

xe.com is competitive with wise rates and answers the phone. My KYC/AML journey was brief and they came through within their stated timeframe.

However all of the online companies sell the happy path and your experience will be diminished the farther you deviate from it. The right answer may be for a business to maintain a second-source in this as in all critical supplier relationships.

The only real solution (that many people here in HN hate?) is crypto. USDT/USDC on Eth or Solana and rails to the old systems are much better now. If you are really paranoid (USDT/USDC have a blacklist functionality), then hold Bitcoin and open a derivative short essentially creating a synthetic USD.

Bitcoin doesn't have a blacklist functionality and you can use lightning for full anonymity.

> then hold Bitcoin and open a derivative short essentially creating a synthetic USD

Huh that's a pretty interesting idea. I guess the downside is you need enough margin to cover the short.

Theoretically, you are fully covered but full margin will require all your holdings to be on the exchange. So maybe do something like 20-25% margin and constantly follow the market to re-balance. It is not a carefree approach.

The main reason I was using Wise is because they made it easy to set up a US bank account. Changing the payment procedure with my current client is untenable, so for now I just ensure that my money is held by Wise for as little time as possible.

For personal foreign currency transactions, usually whilst travelling, I've used Revolut for years without issue.

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