Can I get a mortgage from a foreign bank?
"Simple answer YES you can, there are loads here are some links : world first , Baydon Hill , IPF Just googling ""foreign currency mortgage"", ""international mortgage"", or ""overseas mortgage"" gets you loads of starting points.  I believe its an established and well used process, and they would be ""classified"" as a ""normal"" mortgage. The process even has its own wiki page Incidentally I considered doing it myself. I looked into it briefly, but the cost of fee's seemed to outweigh the possible future benefits of lower interest rates and currency fluctuations." You definitely used to be able to (see this BBC article from 2006), and I would imagine that you still can, although I also imagine that it would be more difficult than it used to be, as with all mortgages. EDIT: And here's an article from last year about Chinese banks targeting the UK mortgage market.
Each country will have different rules. I can only speak about the Netherlands.  There, there are two options as a resident to open an account.  You needed a BSN (Dutch ID number) or a strong reference from an international company sponsoring your residence there at a bank branch that dealt frequently with foreign customers.  It was not possible to open an account as a nonresident although high wealth customers probably get special treatment. Recent US reporting requirements have made European banks very unwilling to deal with US people. I have received a letter from my Dutch bank saying they will continue my current products but not offer me anything new. If I call the bank, the normal staff cannot see anything about my accounts. I need to call a special international department even for mundane questions. Foreign stocks have two extra sources of risk attached to them; exchange rate and political.  Exchange rate risk is obvious; if I buy a stock in a foreign currency and there is a currency movement that makes that investment worth less I lose money no matter what the stock does. This can be offset using exchange rate swaps. (This is ceteris paribus, of course; changes in exchange rate can give a comparative advantage to international and exporting companies that will improve the fundamentals and so increase the price of the stock relative to a local firm. The economics of the firms in particular are not explored in this answer as it would get too complicated and long if I did.) Political risk relates not only to the problems surrounding international politics such as a country deciding that foreign nationals may no longer own shares in their national industries or deciding to seize foreign nationals' assets as happens in some areas. Your home country may also decide to apply sanctions to the country in which you are invested thus making it impossible to get your money back even though the foreign country will allow you to redeem them or sell. Diplomatic relations and trade agreements tend to be difficult. There are further problems in lack of understanding of foreign countries' laws, tax code, customs etc. relating to investments and the necessity to find legal representation in a country you may never have visited if there are issues. There is also a hidden risk in that, as an individual investor, you are not likely to be reading the local financial news for that country regularly enough to spot company specific issues arising. By the time these issues get into international media its far too late as all of the local investors have sold out of their positions already. The risks are probably no different if you have the time to monitor international relations and the foreign country's news, and have FX swaps in place to counteract FX risk as the funds and investment banks do but as an individual investor the time required is not feasible. I can't speak for India, but for US travelers abroad, using an ATM card that reimburses transaction fees is usually the most convenient and cheapest way to obtain foreign cash. There are several banks and brokerages that offer these types of ATM cards in the US. The exchange rate is competitive and because the fees are reimbursed it's cheaper and easy than going to a bank or kiosk to exchange currencies. I don't know if you can get accounts/cards like this in India that reimburse ATM fees. For purchases, using a credit card is fine, too. Some cards charge a foreign transaction fee of ~1%, some don't. The credit card I use most of the time does charge a 1% transaction fee, but I get 2% back in rewards so I still don't mind using it when traveling. "Perhaps buying some internationally exchanged stock of China real-estate companies? It's never too late to enter a bubble or profit from a bubble after it bursts. As a native Chinese, my observations suggest that the bubble may exist in a few of the most populated cities of China such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, the price doesn't seem to be much higher than expected in cities further within the mainland, such as Xi'an and Chengdu. I myself is living in Xi'an. I did a post about the urban housing cost of Xi'an at the end of last year: http://www.xianhotels.info/urban-housing-cost-of-xian-china~15 It may give you a rough idea of the pricing level. The average of 5,500 CNY per square meter (condo) hasn't fluctuated much since the posting of the entry. But you need to pay about 1,000 to 3,000 higher to get something desirable. For location, just search ""Xi'an, China"" in Google Maps. =========== I actually have no idea how you, a foreigner can safely and easily profit from this. I'll just share what I know. It's really hard to financially enter China. To prevent oversea speculative funds from freely entering and leaving China, the Admin of Forex (safe.gov.cn) has laid down a range of rigid policies regarding currency exchange. By law, any native individual, such as me, is imposed of a maximum of $50,000 that can be converted from USD to CNY or the other way around per year AND a maximum of $10,000 per day. Larger chunks of exchange must get the written consent of the Admin of Forex or it will simply not be cleared by any of the banks in China, even HSBC that's not owned by China. However, you can circumvent this limit by using the social ID of your immediate relatives when submitting exchange requests. It takes extra time and effort but viable. However, things may change drastically should China be in a forex crisis or simply war. You may not be able to withdraw USD at all from the banks in China, even with a positive balance that's your own money. My whole income stream are USD which is wired monthly from US to Bank of China. I purchased a property in the middle of last year that's worth 275,000 CNY using the funds I exchanged from USD I had earned. It's a 43.7% down payment on a mortgage loan of 20 years: http://www.mlcalc.com/#mortgage-275000-43.7-20-4.284-0-0-0.52-7-2009-year (in CNY, not USD) The current household loan rate is 6.12% across the entire China. However, because this is my first property, it is discounted by 30% to 4.284% to encourage the first house purchase. There will be no more discounts of loan rate for the 2nd property and so forth to discourage speculative stocking that drives the price high. The apartment I bought in July of 2009 can easily be sold at 300,000 now. Some of the earlier buyers have enjoyed much more appreciation than I do. To give you a rough idea, a house bought in 2006 is now evaluated 100% more, one bought in 2008 now 50% more and one bought in the beginning of 2009 now 25% more." "Yes, many banks offer such a service. Often such payments can be made through their ""bill pay"" interface. You log in to your account on the bank's website, enter the recipient's routing and account numbers, and off you go. You could ask your bank whether they offer this. If not, you could change banks to one that does." I've been a landlord and also a tenant. I have been able to deposit money in an account, where I have the account number, and/or a deposit slip. In a foreign bank you can deposit by a machine if in the bank or someone is there for you and knows the account number. With regards to cashing a check in another country, it is up to the bank and the time is at least 14 to 21 business days, with a fee is added. As of a winning check, since its in your name, if you are in another country sign the check, for deposit only with a deposit slip and send it to your out of country bank by FedEx - you will have a tracking number, where as regular mail it might get there in 3 months. I hope by now you came to your solution. This is fraud and could lead to jail time. The vast majority of people cannot obtain such loans without collateral and one would have to have a healthy income and good credit to obtain that kind of loan to purchase something secured by a valuable asset, such as a home. Has this been done before?  Yes, despite it being the US, you may find this article interesting.     Hopefully, you see how the intent of this hypothetical situation is stealing. "Your Spidey senses are good. A good friend would not put you in such a position. It's simple, to skirt some issue (we'll get to that in a second) you are being asked to lie. All for a 15% return on your $$$$. <<< How much is that?  You can easily lend him the money, and have a better paper trail. But the bank is not going to like that, and requires this money from friends or family to be a gift. I've heard mortgage guys at the bank say ""It's just a formality, we need this paperwork to sell the loan to the investors."" These bankers belong in jail, or at least fired and barred from the industry. They broke the economy in 2008, and should be stopped from doing it again."