Happier Abroad Forum Community

One of the most important and useful advantages I see with western countries which we can avail ourselves of, is the seemingly easy access to personal credit, which can be used towards starting a business, investing, traveling abroad, or some other positive means of gaining freedom and happiness.

I am curious about how hard or easy it has been to get unsecured credit in your country, especially places like the USA, Canada, NZ, UK, South America, Asia or Europe? Please post the rough dollar amount and how easy/hard it was, requirements they asked for. I can share that in Australia its been quite easy, as long as you can show you have a high income with two payslips, you can get access to about $50,000-$55,000 AUD personal loans, credit cards from about 15K-30K, but with high interest rates from 13-15% p.a. for the personal loans

The only relevant data i could come across online was the World Bank Doing Business Index, and below is a list of the top ten countries for getting credit, but i believe this would be more focused towards business vs personal credit. This topic would be an extremely useful topic to explore among the H.A community and expats in general

http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/explo ... ing-credit
http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/explo ... ing-credit

New Zealand 1 100.00 12.0 8.0 0.0 100.0
Colombia 2 95.00 12.0 7.0 0.0 88.7
Rwanda 2 95.00 11.0 8.0 5.4 18.8
United States 2 95.00 11.0 8.0 0.0 100.0
Australia 5 90.00 11.0 7.0 0.0 100.0
Mexico 5 90.00 10.0 8.0 0.0 100.0
Canada 7 85.00 9.0 8.0 0.0 100.0
Costa Rica 7 85.00 10.0 7.0 27.5 100.0
Georgia 7 85.00 9.0 8.0 0.0 74.5
Honduras 7 85.00 9.0 8.0 22.2 36.2
Jamaica 7 85.00 10.0 7.0 0.0 22.4
Montenegro 7 85.00 12.0 5.0 26.4 0.0
Puerto Rico (U.S.) 7 85.00 10.0 7.0 0.0 100.0

After researching how to assert one's rights, and often unproductive battles to defend myself against government extortion, ive come to the conclusion that credit can be one very useful and advantageous remedy, in a world otherwise mired in various problems and different means to drain us of our wealth. Its certainly more empowering to find solutions in the current system that many who ive seen getting bogged down in fighting legal battles or trying to assert their rights against government corruption and extortion with speeding fines etc

I am from the USA. At one time I held a canonical full-time job as an engineer, followed by being a contingency contract worker (also as an engineer) for a while, both times having a decent professional income. I used that to build up about $140K in unsecured credit, and had a completely immaculate credit record. I kept large balances by playing the low-interest balance transfer game while I invested in the stock market, becoming so successful for a while that I didn't even continue taking that contingency work. Then my luck ran out with the Great Recession, and having about $60K remaining, I planned by exit strategy buying a cheap home and eventually filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, where I got to keep that home, my 401K/IRAs and other assets while getting that $140K discharged.

thanks maturedj, those were some good ideas

what did you need to open those accounts? Can one get around needing a SSN ? Can foreigners get credit in the US? What were teh average amounts loaned out, and which banks gave the bigger sums?

Good idea with the bankruptcy, but also there are other options like changing your name in another state etc, glad it worked out for you

I once upon a time had immaculate credit in the states and had pushed it around 60k. However, I should have done what maturedj did and used it to my advantage investing and what not. Thinking back I probably could have gotten it higher thank 60k easily. Alas, I was brainwashed to being a good, honest sheeple American consumer who just used it for mundane everyday consumer stuff and pay the bills on time mentality and don't have much of a month to month balance and all that crap. I didn't start looking past that mentality until I was overseas and not living in the USA matrix anymore. However, I destroyed my USA credit by deciding to default on my student loans and not pay my CC max balances off. Thus, my credit is shot in the USA and there is no restitution of it through bankruptcy because of the student loans. Unless, the law changes in the future I'm pretty much stuck living overseas for the most part. Hindsight, I probably should have payed off my loans with the CC's and then defaulted that way I could have declared bankruptcy or just waited out the time span of 7 years overseas.

I wonder though if foreign countries check the credit score of your citizenship or not? If one just built up a decent living overseas maybe some countries just need to look at your bank records or investments to determine whether you're a risk or not.

In PI, it's fairly easy to get credit here as long as you either have a work visa or are married and have residency because of that. However, the interest rates really suck here like approaching the 20% more or less. I have provable income here so I can get credit with companies for utilities and stuff but don't have a permanent residency visa so can't get CC's or loans.

I've read Singapore is a decent banking option if you have a decent financial portfolio.

I read this guy's blog posts and a few years back he went around to different countries opening up accounts and exploring the pro/cons. You might want to check out some of his blogs about money matters:
http://johntreed.com/blogs/john-t-reed- ... n-articles

I don't have much else to offer regarding personal experience. I follow a lot of alternative investment people but I'm sure you have your own list. They're not mainstream so might rub some people the wrong way. Until I'm out of the woods paying to a raise a child and focus on a different business/career than I am in now, I won't be having a whole lot of extra money to play around with.