Thread: Banking

Can students please advise me about banking and money? Do you just use your bank/credit card from home or do you join a grenadian bank and deposit money into that account to pay with or withdraw cash from atm's on a regular basis? Thanks for your advice!

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeez do a search. This has been mentioned ad nauseum.

Just to give u a synopsis. You can open an account there, or have one in the U.S. that you withdraw from using SGU's atm machine. Personally I used the bank account I have in the states, and just withdrew from SGU's atm. This is good in case something happens and u need money.......you still have the ability to access your money in the states. I fedexd my loan check home so my parents could deposit it for me.

My bank never charged me for withdrawing money overseas (woo hoo)......

Also, if opening an account in SGU keep in mind that there tends to be long lines and accessing your money can get annoying.

Some people bring cash......it works for them. You can get those converted at the bank on campus or the ones off campus. Also lotsa stores take both grenadian and american currency, so you don't have to worry about conversion most of the time.

I take out from my checking all the time. There is an ATM on campus (although often out of service/money) and another one at Spiceland Mall. I gave my refund check to my boyfriend when he visited me in Grenada and he deposited it to my checking back home. Usually I take out once in 1-2 weeks. For each 400EC ($148.8) I am charged $1.48 by my bank.

which US banks have accounts that don't charge any fees for withdrawing internationally? also, which ones have low fees?

i opened a compass checking account and they supposedly have free ATMs, so they won't charge a fee and neither will the ATM in Grenada, so that is good. Although I hate Compass bank for everything else, they might suffice for this. If somebody has used compass bank check card in grenada, please comment on if this is a good card? they probably still charge a conversion fee, but i don't know how much.
My main bank is WAMU, stick most of my money in an online savings account, get like 3.5% APY back. You can use WAMU to push and pull money out of other bank accounts for free. So that's I'm going to do. Keep the bulk of my money in WAMU, and just transfer money into Compass bank enough to pull out in Grenada.

PFF bank.
Doesn't charge me any money to take money out in Grenada

Banks will charge a processing fee for two things:

1. Withdrawing money from an ATM that is not theirs,
2. Withdrawing money from an international/foreign ATM where currency changes are involved.

Some only charge the first, some only the second, some both. Expect to pay one unless you've got a great bank - sometimes, credit unions dont charge these fees, but check with your bank on that.

I would suggest doing the following:

1. Call Bay Shores Financial Aid and have them mail your financial aid refund check to your home address. No point in it coming down to Grenada for you to mail it back home.

2. Just bring your debit card here and use it. The benefit will be a less headache to setup an account down here and, when you do use it take out a decent amount so that you dont get charged too many withdrawal fees.

Thats it -its quite simple...

nope.................already checked with my statements.......

no charge

Save your US currency for emergencies, and use EC dollars for daily purchases, since you will not get good exchange rate at the register if you pay with US currency. In the short term the difference in the exchange rate with US currency will seem slim, but will add up over the term.

So when do we get our refund checks. Like early before the start of the term do i need to let Bayshore know to send my check to the US address?