Onboarding for foreign non-residents is a complete joke
BTG Pactual actively advertises bank accounts for non-residents and foreign customers. In reality, the entire onboarding process was extremely frustrating, poorly designed, and contradictory.
The app is entirely in Portuguese, and the document verification process appears to be built only for Brazilian documents. My German passport was repeatedly rejected. The app even asked for a separate signature page with a barcode, which does not exist in a German passport.
After several attempts, the app crashed. This was followed by multiple conversations with WhatsApp support, repeated transfers between departments, and having to explain the same issue over and over again. BTG eventually confirmed by email that the app is only configured to process Brazilian documents and therefore could not read my German passport.
I then submitted my passport, selfie, CPF, foreign tax identification number, and proof of residence manually. My biometric verification was explicitly approved, and I later received an invitation to complete the registration for the non-resident account.
In the end, the account application was still rejected without any meaningful explanation.
Of course, a bank has the right to reject an application following its internal review. However, BTG should not advertise the account-opening process for foreign non-residents as simple and fully digital when its own app cannot process foreign passports.
The actual process was technically poor, extremely time-consuming, and completely lacking in transparency.
My conclusion: if a bank advertises accounts for foreigners, it should at least provide a functioning passport verification system, a clear process, and understandable communication. In its current form, BTG’s onboarding for foreign customers is not professional.








