Banco Citibank

No geral as agências do Citibank são boas pois as filas são mínimas já que não é um banco com muitos clientes.
Não há muito do que falar, o atendimento do gerente foi bom e rápido, sem nenhuma espera.
Ponto a melhorar é a quantidade de vagas, mas no dia não foi um problema.

I wasn’t able to change my US dollars for Brazilian real while I was in Honolulu, and the currency exchange in LA was going to charge me a $ 10 fee for making the exchange which was not happening. So I waited until I got to Sao Paulo to exchange my money. Since I was staying with locals while visiting Sao Paulo, they brought me here because it was close to their house.
So this Citibank was interesting… there are only a couple of parking stalls in the front, but this didn’t matter since we got dropped off. There is a security guard that stands immediately behind the two doors you need to go through to enter the bank. When you enter the bank, only one person can go in at a time. The guard buzzes each person past the first door, then you wait between the two doors until he buzzes you past the second door. After you enter, follow the hallway on the right to the desks in the back for currency exchange. Take a number from the machine. Heads up for if you don’t know Portuguese: push the top of 3 buttons if you don’t have a Citibank account. If you do have an account, you can push the middle button or the bottom button, depending on the type of account you have.
Once we got called, the teller said that she would only accept US$ that were printed in 2006 or later. So she went through all our cash and then rejected about ¼ of the bills I had brought to exchange because they were printed before 2006. After she counted everything, she asked for our passports… which we had left locked in a safe at the house. So we had to go back to the house, get the passports, and then go back to the bank before we could make any exchange. After the teller rechecked our bills and inspected our passports, we had to wait for a few minutes for each exchange. They take a copy of your passport and then do some other paperwork. Once that’s all set, you need to sign your receipt before they make the exchange.
Upon leaving the bank, you go through the same security doors that you entered through. However when you are exiting, they allow 2 people at a time instead of only one person.
Though I appreciated the high security of this branch (which I learned is necessary because of the high crime rates in Sao Paulo), I wasn’t happy that this Citibank wouldn’t accept older US bills and that they didn’t inform us of the passport requirement until after the teller had gone through all our bills. I also don’t really speak Portuguese, but the person who I was with that does speak said the teller we worked with seemed very irritated and was working very slowly. We were kind of in a rush to go do other things and wanted to beat traffic, so this was a little frustrating to see as we waited for our exchange.
TL;DR — only accepts US bills printed in 2006 or later, passport required for currency exchange, and high security branch!