I'm retiring and moving to the Philippines. I'll keep my Fidelity brokerage account and IRA in the U.S., and I plan to appoint my brother as my agent under a Power of Attorney to help manage them.
I'm also thinking about having my Social Security (SSA) payments deposited directly into that brokerage account, since they'd earn over 3% interest if I keep them in the money market. And while I'm in the Philippines, I'd have the brokerage account write checks to me.
Has anyone tried this? What do you think of this approach?
I live in the Philippines and use Fidelity. Why do I need a power of attorney, though? I receive money in two ways. I have a wealth management account that comes with a Visa debit card, and I can withdraw from ATMs with no fees. I can also have money sent via MoneyGram and withdraw it anywhere in the Philippines with that debit card. Set up another bank account in case something happens to your card. I use Charles Schwab the same way. Good luck.
Never use checks in the Philippines, no matter what. Even by accident, if you get an NSF (insufficient funds) you risk going to jail, and they don't care about the reason. I'm moving there next month and I've spent two years researching this.
We live here and have Fidelity and Wells Fargo (WF) accounts in the US. When we've asked for help from outside the US, they either wouldn't help or said they couldn't. My Social Security payments go straight into my WF account. We have a BDO account here, so whenever we need cash we send it from WF to BDO, and if needed we move money from Fidelity to the WF account. What matters most to us is our T-Mobile phone plan. It gives us two numbers, and we pay $100 to receive OTP texts, which include unlimited texts and 5GB of data. Calls are 25 cents a minute. I think there's probably a better way, but we prefer that nobody knows our business. Cheers.
I had a problem with my brokerage account. As a Philippine permanent resident, I wasn't able to keep my investment accounts in the US. Every situation is different, so talk to a professional. As far as I remember, to legally keep a brokerage account you had to have permanent residence in the US. But the original poster's situation may be different, so get legal advice.
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