Thread: Banking on Saba

I was wondering if anyone who is currently at Saba has any advice/knowledge about banking there?
What do most people do? I'm from Canada and I currently have a bank account with BMO. Do most people use credit cards or debit cards or cash? Do students set up bank account on the island? and what bank account is there?

RBC has US accounts that you can get which are based out of the US. So if you go to RBC in Canada they can set you up with an account based out of Florida in US funds. You can use your RBC US debit card to withdraw cash from your RBC US account. It costs you $3 to withdraw from WIB's machine in The Bottom but you get rebated $2 per transaction if you do it two or less times in a month. You can also withdraw from the machine at RBTT in Windward for free since RBC owns RBTT. That's definitely what I'd recommend. You also get cheques that are drawn in the US so you can pay tuition with those rather than worrying about wire transfers or having your family send a bank draft or any of that. The account is $3.95 per month or something like that, but the fee gets waived if you keep $700 in there at all times and the cheques are free as well.

I usually just withdraw cash whenever I need it and pay with that. As far as I know, no Canadian bank allows you to withdraw US funds from a US account with a debit card so if you go through that route you'll probably get dinged an exchange rate with a commission built in + the fee for using the bank machine here so it's not worth it. Most Canadian banks do offer US credit cards which you can use here, though they usually have annual fees. Just make sure that they don't charge you any cross-border fees for using the credit card here. You can use your credit card at the grocery stores and at Satel, but you can't just depend on a credit card here as you'll need some cash and chances are you'll have to pay your rent in cash.

^ thank you. Your information is really helpful. Now I just have to go set up an RBC bank account. (How far of a walk is it from the university to windward?)

The University is in The Bottom and is a minimum 45 minute walk to Windwardside.. up a very large hill and along a cliff. You can usually get a hitch with someone else driving on the road and that is the major means of transportation for 1st sem. students who don't have cars.