Popular will be huge pain as foreigner...Santa Cruz will be easier and you can go online pay bills... visa, goodluck as foreigner unless you place a huge down payment for privilege of giving you one, use your home country visa..
I concur. Popular is most likely the biggest PITA of all the banks. I am in the process of opening up an account with them because I can get money faster from some clients if they can pay into Popular.
I have been in DR for 14 years and I am PR. I bank with 3 other major banks besides Popular. It was for me 4 trips already including today and yes today I snapped at the account executive after giving her the 4th required batch of documents, that after this I am not going to give them any more documents because what they are asking is borderline of privacy violation and client confidentiality and they can go *** themselves if they ask for more.
The initial "list" published on the website has grown threefold in the meantime, including them insisting on accounting for what I was doing in my home country before coming to DR. Given that I came as 24 year old I told them that I was studying and leeching off my parents and I had no employment there.
I gave these people probably more documents than to other banks and Migración combined. If it was not for a good reason to be client of Popular (thinking of acquiring Azul merchant account later on) I would have sent them to carajo a long time ago. And I actually don't like the bank one bit... Long lines always too many people. But if I can get some people to pay me today instead of in 3 days, simply by having Popular account, I am willing (so far) to put up with their BS.