Send US$ Via Transferwise to BK Bank

[OliverKlozerof]

A friend recommended Transferwise (TW). I did a search for it here and found several threads. I've decided to transfer about 26,000 USD to Bangkok Bank for my retirement visa (not monthly payments). This will be the first time for me and I need to understand the best way of doing it. The money is currently in my Charles Schwab (CS) investment acct in the US. Apparently it is more cost effective to send the money using TW than to let BK Bank take a cut via their exchange rate. TW tells me they will charge about $153 to do the transfer. Schwab, on the other hand only charges $25 to transfer directly to BK Bank. But I'm guessing BK Bank's rate would be so bad that it's worth paying TW's higher fee?
Can anyone confirm that, 1) it will be cheaper overall to send the money using TW, and 2) just what steps I need to do? Thx

[stevenl]

With Transferwise you will see exactly how much money you'll receive on this end. Contact your bank and ask them the same.

[quandow]

I personally transferred the required ฿800,000 using TransferWise about two months ago. As I didn't know it nor trust it, I did it incrementally, starting with $100 US and I my last transfer was $5,000. Everything went without a hitch and it was MUCH less expensive than any other method I looked into. In a similar event, I had a recent Chrome hack on my desktop and the thieves tried nabbing ฿80,000 baht from a US account using TransferWise. TransferWise support was spot on and no harm was done. I continue to use them for monthly expenses. In my experience they get a "two thumbs up."

[Thailand J]

Base on the numbers available at this moment:

 

Schwab:  $25 fee, Chase $2 intermediary bank fee, Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee. $1=31.61B

(26000-25-2 )  x 31.61B -500B =820506B

 

Transferwise :  Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee.

821419-500B = 820919B

 

Transferwise will yield 413B more, which is $13.

I always use Schwab SWIFT because i dont have to pay the $25 fee ,probably because of my high account balance, and it's one step online order , easy for me and the difference is really not that much.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 9, 2019 by Thailand J

[essox essox]

1 hour ago, quandow said:

I personally transferred the required ฿800,000 using TransferWise about two months ago. As I didn't know it nor trust it, I did it incrementally, starting with $100 US and I my last transfer was $5,000. Everything went without a hitch and it was MUCH less expensive than any other method I looked into. In a similar event, I had a recent Chrome hack on my desktop and the thieves tried nabbing ฿80,000 baht from a US account using TransferWise. TransferWise support was spot on and no harm was done. I continue to use them for monthly expenses. In my experience they get a "two thumbs up."

friend of mine uses TW from Uk to Thailand, he has had no problems

[Goethe]

All this information is useful, but it remains anecdotal. Each person's experience is likely to be different. I have investigated using TransferWise several times and always found them more expensive than my own bank. Caveat emptor!

[sfokevin]

If you have the ACH to Bangkok Bank in place it is still working and a viable way to transfer funds (They have said they will accept non IAT formatted transfer until the end of a June)... I am planning to use them in the next 30-45 days to transfer the 800k... Hoping the rate pops above 32 ;-)...

[mtls2005]

My back of the napkin estimates as of 5/9/19 ~ 9:29 AM

 

TW 822,711.28

 

CS 820,450.06

 

 

TW better by 2,261.22 THB

 

 

For me, using Fidelity, I do not have to pay any origination fee, nor any intermediary fee, so usually fare better than TW marginally.

 

 

 

 

 

[tlock]

1 hour ago, Thailand J said:

...

Transferwise :  Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee.

821419-500B = 820919B

...

 

Can anyone else confirm if Bangkok Bank charges a 500B receiving fee for Transferwise?  I thought I had seen somewhere that it appears as a domestic transfer to BKK Bank...

[sfokevin]

As a sideline for anyone transferring 800K into Thailand for visa purposes... Once the transfer is complete go to your Thai bank and ask for a "Credit Advice"... This will be free and will show the details of the transaction and proof the funds came from you/abroad... This would be useful to have if say in a few years you would like to repatriate the funds back to your home country and the bank wants proof of where your 800K originally came from...

[sfokevin]

1 hour ago, tlock said:

Can anyone else confirm if Bangkok Bank charges a 500B receiving fee for Transferwise?  I thought I had seen somewhere that it appears as a domestic transfer to BKK Bank...

No receiving fee for Transferwise.com but OFX.com does incur the BK Bank fee .0025%..

[OliverKlozerof]

4 hours ago, Thailand J said:

Base on the numbers available at this moment:

Schwab:  $25 fee, Chase $2 intermediary bank fee, Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee. $1=31.61B

(26000-25-2 )  x 31.61B -500B =820506B

Transferwise :  Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee.

821419-500B = 820919B

Transferwise will yield 413B more, which is $13.

I always use Schwab SWIFT because i dont have to pay the $25 fee ,probably because of my high account balance, and it's one step online order , easy for me and the difference is really not that much.

EXACTLY the response I was hoping for. Thailand J you are golden. ???? I think I'll just go directly from Schwab. $13 is change.

[Pib]

2 hours ago, tlock said:

Can anyone else confirm if Bangkok Bank charges a 500B receiving fee for Transferwise?  I thought I had seen somewhere that it appears as a domestic transfer to BKK Bank...

No Bangkok Bank receiving fee when using TW.

[Pib]

Also note that when sending over $15K via Transferwise you will not have the Transferwise ACH Bank Debit (Pull) option; instead, you will need to do a domestic wire from Schwab to TW to fund the transfer....the TW will complete the transfer.  That Schwab domestic wire will cost you $25 unless you have a Schwab premium acct where you get X-amount of free wire transfers.

 

Personally, unless you plan to start doing frequent smaller dollar transfers where a Transferwise account would be beneficial I would just do a SWIFT transfer direct from Schwab to your Thai bank for this $26K you want to transfer.   TW is not always the best deal especially for USD to THB transfers.  

 

In fact, you will end up with approx Bt700 more baht in your account if SWIFTing from Schwab versus using Transferwise for the $26K transfer.  Plus no middle man (TW) to deal with.   See calculations before....using exchange rates of the moment and adjustment for wire transfer fees.  Note the TW wire fee in their calculation is their wire "receiving" fee; not the Schwab wire fee to get the funds to TW which will cost $25.

 

SWIFT (includes $25 wire fee adjustment)

$26000 - $25 = $25975 x 31.66 =Bt822,368.50 - Bt500 = Bt821,868.50 posting to your Thai bank account

 

TW

Adjusting for $25 wire fee to get the funds to TW

 

 

[OliverKlozerof]

4 hours ago, Thailand J said:

Schwab:  $25 fee, Chase $2 intermediary bank fee, Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee. $1=31.61B

(26000-25-2 )  x 31.61B -500B =820506B

Transferwise :  Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee.

821419-500B = 820919B

Transferwise will yield 413B more, which is $13.

 

27 minutes ago, Pib said:

No Bangkok Bank receiving fee when using TW.

Assuming Pip is correct, that adds about $15 in favor of TW ($13+15=$28). I think I'll still go directly from Schwab. If the savings was in the 2000B range (~$60), then it might be worth the extra hassle of going Schwab > TW > BK Bank. But I have other things to do with my time and neurons. ???? 

[OliverKlozerof]

Aside:
I posted this question last night and shortly thereafter received notification of a reply. I forget the name of the poster, but the essence was, "Why don't you do the math on your own? You might actually learn something. Jeez."
Well, I immediately went and turned off notifications for this post, as I was dreading similar responses from others.
This morning, on the other hand, after gritting my teeth and logging back on, I was 1) delighted to find every other person wrote thoughtful, helpful, kind responses and, 2) the above reply was gone (deleted by poster or an admin?).
Most of the time I'm smart enough not to engage people like this. But it did keep me up part of the night wondering how/why people become like this. Was their childhood so bad they feel the need to belittle others from the safety of their keyboards? Well, it's a futile exercise. But thanks again to the majority out there who try to be helpful...and kind.

[SammyJ]

5 hours ago, Thailand J said:

 

 

 

 

 

Base on the numbers available at this moment:

 

Schwab:  $25 fee, Chase $2 intermediary bank fee, Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee. $1=31.61B

(26000-25-2 )  x 31.61B -500B =820506B

 

Transferwise :  Bangkok Bank 500B receiving fee.

821419-500B = 820919B

 

Transferwise will yield 413B more, which is $13.

I always use Schwab SWIFT because i dont have to pay the $25 fee ,probably because of my high account balance, and it's one step online order , easy for me and the difference is really not that much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SammyJ]

4 hours ago, Goethe said:

All this information is useful, but it remains anecdotal. Each person's experience is likely to be different. I have investigated using TransferWise several times and always found them more expensive than my own bank. Caveat emptor!

and i tried to use transferwise from the US and found they wanted me to provide them with my US bank "details", meaning user id and pw--so they could do what they called an ach debit---giving out my bank details, regardless of tw's promise to keep all conidential (i understand that in other countries this is not done that way, but i contacted tw and searched their own help section and they explain this is the best way--for them, maybe, but not for me).  my own bank would freak and maybe hold me responsible if money goes missing, upon learning that i voluntarily gave out my user id and pw.  

 

tw did say i could instead, get details from them, and transfer the money to them, rather than them "pulling" is the term they used, from my US account.  However, they did not allow an ach transfer, which is free from my bank--guessing because they are not a US bank, but said i could wire transfer to them (cost of $50 from my US bank for any wire transfer--and they further warned me that doing it that way was likely to delay the transfer arriving at its destination by an unknown number of days.

 

and if you have read other threads on FB thai visa group, etc, their are times, not many, but it has caused problems for some, that not every tw transfer will show as an international transfer--there are ways around this, it has been indicated, but it requires several steps with tw in advance of your transfer etc--other words, it gets complicated.

 

so, as others have said, make a SWIFT transfer from your US bank and be done with it--my bank, currently is charging only $30 for an international SWIFT transfer--it's not free, but not complicated and from one bank to another--not an outside agency like tw.

[SammyJ]

4 hours ago, sfokevin said:

If you have the ACH to Bangkok Bank in place it is still working and a viable way to transfer funds (They have said they will accept non IAT formatted transfer until the end of a June)... I am planning to use them in the next 30-45 days to transfer the 800k... Hoping the rate pops above 32 ;-)...

just wanted to confirm--ur saying that bkk bank ny is still allowing ach transfers to them, to then be deposited to one's bkk bank account in thailand--even though their announcement had been that this practice had ended on April 1??  they are still allowing it until June??

[Pib]

5 minutes ago, SammyJ said:

just wanted to confirm--ur saying that bkk bank ny is still allowing ach transfers to them, to then be deposited to one's bkk bank account in thailand--even though their announcement had been that this practice had ended on April 1??  they are still allowing it until June??

 

They came out with a new announcement via letters mailed to individuals extending the cutoff to 30 Jun 2019....or at least "they are going to try" to keep the door open till 30 June.   Numerous folks have posted that transfers they did after 1 Apr are continuing to arrive no problem.  See below post to see a copy of the letter.   I also received the letter in the mail.    But if you look at Bangkok Bank's website they still reference the 1 Apr cutoff date.   

 

Summary: Bangkok Bank is still allowing ACH transfers "not" in ACH "IAT" format as of their originally announced 1 Apr cutoff date; it's now 30 Jun (or they will try to keep the door open thru 30 Jun).

 

 

[jacko45k]

14 hours ago, OliverKlozerof said:

Can anyone confirm that, 1) it will be cheaper overall to send the money using TW, and 2) just what steps I need to do? Thx

You can do the comparison yourself. On the Transferwise website they will quote the current rate , and once you initiate the transfer that rate is fixed. The corresponding rate for Bangkok Bank is listed in their FT page under TT buying rates. The better Transferwise rate usually covers the extra cost of a larger transfer, and the 500 baht Bangkok Bank take to convert the money at the rate when it arrives. This is for Sterling in my case. I actually just compared for $10,000, and there wasn't much in it!

 

[Thailand J]

Sorry I assumed Bangkok Bank's 500B receiving fee since it is FTT. let me try again without the 500B.

 

Schwab:  (26000-25-2) x31.66 -500B =821,805B

Trasferwise : 821,677 B

 

Again, the difference is really not that much.

[mtls2005]

17 minutes ago, Thailand J said:

Schwab:  (26000-25-2) x31.66 -500B =821,805B

 

When I did my calculation earlier this morning the BKK T/T rate was 31.62, maybe pre-open? 

 

Now I get:

CS:  821,805.18

TW: 821,289.70

[Pib]

33 minutes ago, Thailand J said:

Sorry I assumed Bangkok Bank's 500B receiving fee since it is FTT. let me try again without the 500B.

 

Schwab:  (26000-25-2) x31.66 -500B =821,805B

Trasferwise : 821,677 B

 

Again, the difference is really not that much.

Need to subtract $25 worth of baht from the TW amount as a wire costing around $25 will be needed to get the money to TW to fund the transfer.  ACH bank debit (i.e., ACH Pull) can not be used for amounts of over $15K.

[wgdanson]

15 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

 

When I did my calculation earlier this morning the BKK T/T rate was 31.62, maybe pre-open? 

 

Now I get:

CS:  821,805.18

TW: 821,289.70

Don't worry, be happy.

[mosan]

3 hours ago, SammyJ said:

and i tried to use transferwise from the US and found they wanted me to provide them with my US bank "details", meaning user id and pw--so they could do what they called an ach debit---giving out my bank details, regardless of tw's promise to keep all conidential (i understand that in other countries this is not done that way, but i contacted tw and searched their own help section and they explain this is the best way--for them, maybe, but not for me).  my own bank would freak and maybe hold me responsible if money goes missing, upon learning that i voluntarily gave out my user id and pw.  

 

tw did say i could instead, get details from them, and transfer the money to them, rather than them "pulling" is the term they used, from my US account.  However, they did not allow an ach transfer, which is free from my bank--guessing because they are not a US bank, but said i could wire transfer to them (cost of $50 from my US bank for any wire transfer--and they further warned me that doing it that way was likely to delay the transfer arriving at its destination by an unknown number of days.

 

and if you have read other threads on FB thai visa group, etc, their are times, not many, but it has caused problems for some, that not every tw transfer will show as an international transfer--there are ways around this, it has been indicated, but it requires several steps with tw in advance of your transfer etc--other words, it gets complicated.

 

so, as others have said, make a SWIFT transfer from your US bank and be done with it--my bank, currently is charging only $30 for an international SWIFT transfer--it's not free, but not complicated and from one bank to another--not an outside agency like tw.

TransferWise does (did) not ask for your user ID and password, they use your account number and routing number. The same numbers printed on the bottom of paper checks and deposit slips that have been used by banks and financial institutions for eons to access (pull or push) money to your account. If your bank allows you to initiate SWIFT transfers from Thailand then all well and good. TransferWise is doing nothing new, just providing a service cheaper and easier than most financial institutions can provide. Besides most of my transfers I've done over the last 6 months has averaged $21 in fees and, and the deposits arrive here in approximate 24 to 36 hours--all initiated from my phone or desktop in a matter of 1 or 2 minutes... I use Bangkok bank and all transfers have arrived coded as FTT (foreign telex transfer) to date.

 

[Pib]

2 minutes ago, mosan said:

TransferWise does (did) not ask for your user ID and password, they use your account number and routing number. The same numbers printed on the bottom of paper checks and deposit slips that have been used by banks and financial institutions for eons to access (pull or push) money to your account.

 

No, depending on your US bank you may need to logon to your bank account thru the TW interface.....this is what the poster meant when he said TW asked for his bank User ID/password.    TW using an API by Plaid which allows TW and your US bank to directly interface to fund the transfer.   When I do a TW transfer this is how I do it.  

 

Now if your US bank does no use Plaid, then a person needs to use the method you describe.  

[mosan]

3 minutes ago, Pib said:

No, depending on your US bank you may need to logon to your bank account thru the TW interface.....this is what the poster meant when he said TW asked for his bank User ID/password.    TW using an API by Plaid which allows TW and your US bank to directly interface to fund the transfer.   When I do a TW transfer this is how I do it.  

 

Now if your US bank does no use Plaid, then a person needs to use the method you describe.  

Don't quote me on this, but I'm almost certain that TW gave me the option of which system to use when I signed up. So you're telling me that certain banks (your bank) "only" use the API by Plaid and you were not given the option of debit or SWIFT also?  

[Pib]

5 minutes ago, mosan said:

Don't quote me on this, but I'm almost certain that TW gave me the option of which system to use when I signed up. So you're telling me that certain banks (your bank) "only" use the API by Plaid and you were not given the option of debit or SWIFT also?  

Correct.  Not given the ACH bank debit option via trial deposits for my bank (not to be confused with funding via debit card)..  In fact, one time I attempted to go the trial deposit method but as soon as I entered my routing number the TW system recognized it's one of the banks that interfaces with Plaid and immediately took me to the screen where your use the TW interface to log onto my bank.  

Edited May 9, 2019 by Pib

[onera1961]

As a sideline for anyone transferring 800K into Thailand for visa purposes... Once the transfer is complete go to your Thai bank and ask for a "Credit Advice"... This will be free and will show the details of the transaction and proof the funds came from you/abroad... This would be useful to have if say in a few years you would like to repatriate the funds back to your home country and the bank wants proof of where your 800K originally came from...

Or use DeeMoney if available for your country. Nothing to peove

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