Estonian E-residency, is one of the most exciting initiatives I saw in my living memory. This certainly opens a world of opportunity for Entrepreneurs like me, who dream of setting a global business. Estonia is a full European Union member, and also use the Euro as a currency. This certainly makes it a credible place to open a company, besides many other attractive destinations like Georgia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and others. Also operating a company means, you have access to all the countries in Europe for your product or service.
This attracts me to be an E-resident and later open a company. Even though it was 100 Euro to get the card, I had to spend another 300 Euro more, to receive the card from their nearest Embassy. As my plan was to set an E-commerce brand, to sell in Europe. I was waiting for a partner there.
So far, I heard a lot of people opening a company, as an E-resident but most of them are not active or close them, for bad experience from banking to the high cost of consultancy. E -resident is seen as 2nd class resident and often is the victim of this bad policy. Its clear, when you see that some banks will charge you or even will not open an account if a company is done by an E-resident. The level of abuse stretches further when there are E-resident who often found that their company account is been stoped by providers like Paypal, Swed bank and others.
Another usual problem for the E-resident is the abuse from the consultancy company. The E-resident projects, so far more into advertising the consultancy company, rather than building a knowledge base solution for the E-resident. This unhealthy ecosystem is ripping people, by paying fees, which can be easily avoided. From a mandatory contact address service to simple accounting, you have to spend a couple of hundred Euro, even before you find a path to earn money. This reminds me of the situation of the UK, back in 2009-10, when they allow student from many countries entering as a student easily, without a proper plan. In consequence, not many people are interested to study in UK now, which made them a 2nd Tier country for study and immigration.