I just read that the United States has relaxed their restrictions on banking and doing business in Myanmar. Has anyone had any recent experience using an ATM machine in Myanmar?
Reply to this I haven't had the pleasure of visiting Myanmar, but recently heard an NPR podcast where they said about 1600 ATMs have been installed (possibly just in Yangon, I'm not sure). The gist of the article suggests that there are ATMs, but I would suspect that they aren't as prolific as in other countries because the banks are still trying to build trust with the locals and ATMs are quite a new concept.
Here is a link to the news article/podcast (not back linking) if you want to read or listen to it:
How to Get a Country to Trust its Banks. Note: this does focus on Yangon, so I don't know how it would reflect on the rest of the country.
Enjoy your travels and look forward to reading about them!
Reply to this In response to: Msg #196944
Thanks for the link to the NPR story. However my question was less about the availability of ATMs, but rather whether you can complete a transaction when you have an ATM or debit card issued by a US financial institution. Since the sanctions imposed by the US on banking and doing business in Myanmar have very recently been lifted, I'm wondering if the banking community has caught up.
I have used my ATM card with no problem around the world, until I got to Viet Nam. I couldn't complete a transaction with most of the ATMs, but I was successful with an HSBC ATM. HSBC in Viet Nam is wholly owned by by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, a Hong Kong based company with affiliates in the US.
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