U.S. Topic -- Suntrust / BB&T Merger, questions for BB&T customers

[Jingthing]

Suntrust is a very big bank.

BB&T is a very big bank. 

Well, they are merging to create a MONSTER bank.

Suntrust is the one that will disappear. 

Suntrust customers will become BB&T  customers.

 

So I have some question for BB&T customers?

 

Is BB&T an expat friendly or expat unfriendly bank? (Suntrust is unfriendly.)

Will they accept a change to a non-U.S. address for existing customers and not close your account because of it?

 

SWIFT wires. Do you need to show up a branch at least one time to enter the service or not? Do you they have ONLINE SWIFT wire transfers, or not? If not, what is their SWIFT wire method?

 

Does their website require two factor such as U.S. cell phone number or not?

 

Thanks for any responses.

 

 

[Jingthing]

OK I assumed based on info I had previously read that the new brand would be BB&T and Suntrust would go away.

I was wrong. The new brand will be called TRUIST.

Which is pretty weird. I get the connection to Suntrust but not BB&T.

It's not fully approved yet but obviously it will be. 

I guess this post is probably premature as it's impossible to know at this point which policies of either old brand will remain in the new brand.

 

 

 

 

[AgMech Cowboy]

Jingthing, I found dealing with any of the US banks that do not have direct SWIFT transfers (Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, BoA, etc?) to be a hassle, especially transferring money into the US bank. BB&T are charging $65 for transfers, Chase $40.  I also noted that DD&T don't seem to have a routing number, which means they get their transfers from overseas via another US bank.  Acquiring Suntrust may have solved that problem since Suntrust does (did?) have one.  Are you using TransferWise?  Maybe that's a whole different ball of wax.  I've never used them so cannot comment.

 

I've only transferred money to the USA on a few occasions. If your doing it in person, getting all the details into the transfer instructions is easy. If you're trying to do it online, it was impossible for me.  There was no option to give instructions that could not transfer money into a seconded bank, like BB&T.

 

I opened an account last year with Chase and have been very pleased.  I did it in person and then sent a couple of transfers out before leaving.  Once all was sorted, I've had no problems. Wells Fargo was a nightmare and I won't go into why.  I use a private mailbox service in my brother's city as my local address for their record.