Cedula

yeah, its a mess.  they gave me my cedula de extrangeria (contraseña) within a month, But it took a whole year for me to get my actual (carnet). without the carnet its very hard to get credit in this country.  you have to get in touch and email migracion colombia in Bogota.  Once I did that, I got it within 3 weeks.  I know its very frustrating.  uuuughhgghh!!!

This sounds about correct. My advice, in all honesty, would be to go the DAS office in Bogota on Calle 100 with Carerra 11, find out who is in charge, and make a GIANT scene IN the DAS office. Just start yelling and make it known you are not leaving until you get what you came for. Usually being an asshole with these morons at DAS works well.

I errored in my first post, at that time it was 3 months...anyway obtained my temporal cedula this past monday, so that was 1 week short of 4 months.  I had always checked for 'my number' once a week on their website, this past monday I accessed their website to get the medellin address and there was "my number". When I questioned why it took nearly 4 months the reply was sometimes it takes a long time. Previously I read someone had difficulties opening a bank acct with a 'temporal' but I had not problems at main branch mde bancolombia.

Hi there,

Mine took a matter of weeks.

I have the husband visa and there were no problems. A trip to Bog for paper work and an interview type thing and that was it back to Bucaramanga and waited another week,

Mine only took a couple of weeks in Barranquilla, but my Girlfriend is Colombian and she says her first ID took a year to get to her. I went to the office every week instead of looking on the website which is probably never updated.

Anyway you do not need a Cedula to open an account with Bancolombia i opened mine with my passport, but be warned about Bancolombia they have a limit of $7000USD per month and a cap of $27,000USD per year for money wired to the account from a foreign account. you can get round this sometimes if the Branch manager is in a good mood and allows it through though.

That sounds about exactly right. The truth is, nobody who works at DAS knows what they are doing, and nobody cares either. Lay down 100,000 pesos in front of them, and the problema will be solved very quickly.

Glad you got yours. I applied back in January, left Colombia back to the US and when I moved here in May I got the temporary one and then had to wait two weeks for my permanent one. They did however want to charge me twice for it and had to fight them to say I already paid. If you just go back into the office, I think that might be a better solution then relying on the web service. If you don't speak Spanish well get a Spanish speaking friend to go with you to work through the bureaucracy.

good day....i am a little confused with your temporary and permanent cedulas....my 'temporal' is for 3 years and expires on the  date of my 'conjugal visa' in 2016....i was assuming 'temporals' were issued until a person attained permanent residency status which i understand i could apply for after a 5 years of having a conjugal visa....only then would a 'permanent' be issued....please enlighten me!....

surprised to hear you opened a bank account without a cedula, anything i have read on the expat sites says u need one....i had tried only once before at a colpatria branch in mde and was told a cedula required....  at bancolombia when i deposited some $usd i also had to show the date of my last entry into colombia...i asked why that was required and was told u can only deposit $usd within 5 months of your last entry into colombia.....for any large transfers and a far better exchange rate it is best to use a commercial bank for foreign transfers and then move to your retail bank...i use GSC  [Global Securites] in MDE [no cedula required, but must show u have applied for one the many types of visas]

My Temporal Visa and Cedula is for 1 year but i got Visa in Novemeber last year and got my ID in July or something. but i have had the Bancolombia account since April. I just went in and spoke to the girl and she accepted my visa and Passport. I had to show her payslips as well but even though i do not work in Colombia and make no money in the country she accepted this anyway. I cannot get credit anywhere though even trying to put it against a car or the land that i own and is in my name, they will not accept this. They say that unless i open a business or my work has an office in Colombia i will not get credit. 

And as for Sending money to Bancolombia if you go to the bank on the morning the money arrives in the account you can get nearly the same exchange rate as XC.com at the desk.

It is true you can open account with just your passport.
It is a very new thing so if they tell you otherwise tell them to check with someone above as it is very possible.