É«»¨ÌÃ

Hi Team

Lots of info here - thankyou.

Does anyone know of a banking app (either online or bricks&mortar) that is bi-lingual (English)?  After spending lots of time in Rio surviving on Cirrus cash from Santander ATMs and an AUD$ credit card, I'm relocating permenantly ... but my Portuguese is basic ... and when it comes to money/banking I need to understand things PRECISELY!!

I have CPF and RNME.

Cheers.

@MikeInRio if you are a tax resident in Brazil I would recommend Wise. You can open an account in several currencies including BRL. They will issue you a debit card that you can use pretty much everywhere. If you are not a tax resident in Brazil , open an account in Australia ( I am assuming you are an Aussie) and transfer money to it which you can then convert into reais and use the debit card to withdraw money in Brazil. Wise has the best currency conversion rates in the market. Wise has both the application in several languages depending where you live and a website . You can perform account operations in both.

I use wise . So far no issues. You will know the exchange  rate and fees before you make any transaction. Go online and read about wise. Lot of literature out there.

@kawakasbah Thanks ... yes have discovered Wise and used it for TX rent payments to my landlord's Itau bank account.  I'll follow-up on the debit card option. Thanks again.

@martinsan

Hi is everythng going with this bank account ? Are you still happy ? Thanks a lot

I'm very happy with Iti. If you plan to use it just for payments, it's a good option: Debit card, PIX, mobile phone top ups, pay boletos, etc. I managed to open an account with just a CPF last year. I'm not sure if anything has changed since then...

I am doing a bit of research about bank accounts in Brasil. My idea is to use it wherever my UK card isn't accepted and also for PIX transfers.
Not planning to hold much money in that account. I will make small transfers from the UK using Western Union or Wise.
I had a look to digital banks like NuBank/Banco Inter which look ok for me.
Do you have any experience using these or any other bank account to recommend?

Also, I see the registration process asks for Brasilian ID. My residency was granted last week and got a RNM number but the actual ID (CRNM) will take a couple of months to arrive.
Anyone managed to open an account without CRNM?

Thank you,
Martin - @martinsan

NU Bank , when it comes to banking security, is the worst.

Find one with branches. 

Updates regarding Iti:

Iti accounts are being migrated to Itaú. Currently, users can choose to migrate manually, or the migration will occur automatically on the designated date (exact date is unclear, but it's likely to be very soon). After the migration, users can access their accounts via the Itaú app, and a new debit card will be issued.

My Iti account was automatically migrated into my Itau account. What a mess! The new account number belongs to someone named Thomas, so I cannot access it on the Itau PC app, and the manager assigned to me apparently has no desire to provide me with the correct account number.

05/15/25 @ibdegen.  That sounds awful.  How long have you had to put up with that?  Does this "Thomas" have access to your funds, or are you both locked out?

Good questions @abthree. My thoughts exactly. So far, I've been dealing with it for about a week.

05/15/25 Good questions @abthree. My thoughts exactly. So far, I've been dealing with it for about a week. - @ibdegen

That's terrible service, and it calls for a visit to the back office of your nearest Itaú branch.  In my experience, this is the kind of problem that is solved pretty quickly by a human being sitting in front of a computer screen with the customer watching from the other side of the desk, and not addressed effectively any other way.  Be sure to have your passport and your CRNM with you, and I'd print out whatever email notifications they've sent you, too.

Best of luck to you.

@ibdegen What an interesting glitch. I hope your issue gets resolved soon! Do you have the same issue with the mobile app?

I opened an account with Itau. When they sent me the card, I checked the track and trace, and the card was sent to a random address somewhere else in town. So I went to my branch to fix it. My manager told me she could do nothing, and that I should call their customer service to block the card. She didn't want to do this for me, but she did try to sell me a life insurance on the spot.

Later I tried to enter the app and had the same problem as described above. The app showed a random name and I couldn't proceed. It looks like their system is assigning wrong names and addresses to accounts.

I have many more of this kind of stories and find myself having to visit the branch all the time because something goes wrong. Their app is also so slow it's barely usable.

I'm still with Itau, because my employer uses it, but I can't recommend them.