Do I NEED a Saudi bank account?

Its choice. We never opened an account here.

If you do open an account (it can be handy) advised to keep a minimum balance (definition: a balance that you are randomly prepared to lose access to) in it. Advised also to have more than one backup method of having access to funds (suggested 1 credit card + 1 ATM card for your overseas bank).

If you have been told this then this discussion probably is not applicable to your situation. It is applicable to the situation of the OP (original poster)

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To the original poster we too are from the UK and the only reason why we have a Saudi Bank account here is due to the fact we have a car bank loan but as soon as the salary is banked with the Saudi Bank we only leave enough for the bank loan and then transfer everything to our accounts in the UK.

You do not have to open a Saudi Account - Aramco will and do transfer your salary wherever you wish i.e. UK - yes do use your Mastercard as a back up and we use our UK debit bank card here in Saudi and in Bahrain etc. Bank of Scotland and Lloyds.

There is much debate that has been written about the loss of money a few months ago with a local bank here on the compound - interesting to note my husband has just called me this morning as more money has been withdrawn within 10 minutes last night (3 transactions) when we were both at home with our local bank card - we have not lost it so once again my husband will have to take time off work this morning and go to the Saudi bank and see what has happened?

We never had our lost money returned to us the last time which was around 5,500 SAR although many people lost a lot more than that - some did get some monies returned but it is apparently still ongoing as a nurse at the clinic here on the compound had her account wiped out two weeks ago with all her transfers going to Bahrain - bank tried to say to her she was shopping in Bahrain but she has never been to Bahrain so the problem goes on.

Hope this helps
Carolina

Useful to have a local bank account. Aramco tends to transfer reimbursement of travel expenses to us into our Saudi bank account. As another poster said, keep pocket money in it and repatriate the rest back to your UK account which is what we do. That way, we can pay our insurance bills here in riyals straight from our bank account. However, we don't have a debit card or credit card here - just an ATM card. All debit and credit cards are UK based. New cards are delivered to an address in the UK and we have to pick them up as and when we are in the UK. So far the timing has worked but in the future....

I would double check about you 'having to' deposit youre entire check into a Saudi bank. The rules differ for different nationalities, but I know for Americans we can choose 2 banks worldwide. We still have our entire check going into our bank back home.

Dont let the Saudi Hollandi thing care you, there are some good banks here. It just seems the branch in RT has some issues. I have friends who have been here for years and never had problems with other banks.

Good luck!

All of the ATM's here is Saudi that we use have a maximum withdrawal (single withdrawal) amount of 5000 SAR.

We are limited actually by our bank of origination to a maximum withdrawal of $1000 (about 3500 SAR) in a day.

SO: We opened and use (2) bank accounts in the US (primary and backup LOL just to be safe) + keep our credit cards current.

We otherwise never opened an account here. Many do and some have had problems and some have not. We just wanted to avoid any potential problems.

The main bank used by Aramcons in Dhahran is the National Commercial Bank (NCB) because it's the only one with a branch on camp.

So far, I have never heard of anyone having a problem with their account there, such as apparently exists with the Saudi Hollandi bank in RT.

One thing to be aware of - as with all banks in Saudi, you have to give them an updated copy of your iqama each time it expires.

I have heard people citing this as a reason not to open a bank account here but it's really a simple process: you get your new iqama, you go into the bank, they take a copy and that's it. So long as you don't wait until after your old iqama's expiry date, it's not a problem.