sharkeysday

The chances of you getting a US account without physically appearing in the branch are slim to none. A regulation called "know your customer" requires that they verify that you are who you say you are, have proper US tax IDs, show photo ID and have someone look at you to verify, etc. Now it's even worse because of new money laundering and anti-terrorism acts.

Best to find some other workaround.

And an observation - I tried to open an account in India before I moved there, so I could send money ahead and be ready to roll. Could not be done, not even with help on the ground there, at least at that time.

WAMU offers EFT, but through bill payment. In this country, the laws on who's liable for fraudulent transactions are different than in most other countries. EFTs have almost 90 days during which the person transferring funds can call them fraudulent or in error, and banks don't want to take that risk for person to person transfers. (Thereby creating a market for Paypal.) The EFTs that are done in this country are almost all business to business or consumer to business. It exists the way it does, I've been told, because of the number of time zones and geographic distances in the country, which make it a lot easier to perpetrate frauds like kiting.