Transfering 800k bhat via Transferwise--not a good experience

[OZinPattaya]

First off, the purpose of this post isn't to poo-poo Transferwise, which I understand many people on this forum have used successfully, but only to relate my own experience so that others may make a more informed decision in the same predicament as mine.

 

The first thing that may not be obvious to people here, since Transferwise doesn't disclose this in any clear way, is that Transferwise cannot do a direct debit on your originating bank account if the amount is larger than 15,000 USD (I'm only talking here of American Bank accounts, not sure if this applies to other western countries). So, if you try to transfer the equivalent of 800k bhat you will have to initiate a wire transfer with your American bank, which means you will incur a wire transfer fee from your originating bank. Or, alternatively, and what I recommend, you could split the transaction in two to keep the transfer under 15k--just allow yourself the time to do so. But it is quite irritating to discover this problem after the fact from a company that is supposedly all about "transparency."

 

Secondly, and there has much discussion on this forum about this, is that in no way, shape, or form, can Transferwise guarantee that the transfer will show up as an international/foreign/FT transfer. There is no "hard-coding" this as has been suggested by some on TVF. This means that if you transfer your 800k bhat you have no guarantee whatsoever that it will show for visa purposes as an FT transfer and you will receive no refund from Transferwise if it does not. As of the date of this post, Transferwise has no good solution to this. After talking to two different support people at Transferwise, I got two completely different stories. The first person told me that it "should" show as an FT transfer barring some technical glitch. The second person all but guaranteed me that it would show as a local transfer and that to prevent this I would have to contact my Thai bank, get some obscure letter from them, relay that to Transferwise, a process that the support person herself didn't seem to understand. It doesn't appear that the support personnel at Transferwise are explicitly trained on this issue and are simply relating their own experience.

 

My experience trying to do two less-than 15k transfers from a Wells Fargo and CapitalOne bank account from America: "An Internal Error Has Occurred." So far no reply from Transferwise about this error. So, after nearly two weeks of trying to transfer funds via Transferwise, I am now opting for the good old-fashioned SWIFT transfer, which I know will show as FT. Experiences may vary, but suffice it to say that for future transfers I will be looking for an alternative to Transferwise.

Edited October 29, 2019 by OZinPattaya

[BritManToo]

Americans always seem to have more problems than Europeans.

I guess it's your country being 'money laundering' difficult.

[Enoon]

 

Your post reads like you had not already made a small, trial transfer, to see how it would appear on your bank statement.

 

Did you?

 

 

[OZinPattaya]

6 minutes ago, Enoon said:

 

Your post reads like you had not already made a small, trial transfer, to see how it would appear on your bank statement.

 

Did you?

 

 

You're correct, I did not. I'm not sure if it would mean anything anyway. The mere fact that the first transfer shows as FT doesn't mean any of the others will, a point I explicitly brought up to Transferwise and they confirmed.

Edited October 29, 2019 by OZinPattaya

[Moonlover]

5 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Americans always seem to have more problems than Europeans.

I guess it's your country being 'money laundering' difficult.

I've noticed this as well. I do wonder whether US banks are practicing 'protectionism' against T/W because they don't like being undercut.

 

I just done a 'dummy run' to see what the result would be if I was to do a similar transaction through my UK bank account. Compared with T/W.

 

Firstly I know it would be possible and were I to use T/W, I would be 13,500 THB in pocket due to the favourable exchange T/W ex rate. That's despite being charged a whopping 120 GBP.

 

So sorry to hear that the O/P had this difficulty, but British clients need not despair.

 

One final point on this. The O/P mentioned this foreign transaction coding. I have found that this is not an issue, at least not with my IO. The T/W transaction slip was accepted as adequate proof that they are foreign remittances.

[OZinPattaya]

16 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Americans always seem to have more problems than Europeans.

I guess it's your country being 'money laundering' difficult.

Maybe. Even after getting the completely pointless "embassy letter" to open a Bank of Bangkok account the bank manager still fought me claiming that I did not have a "long-term" visa, whereupon I had to bring up the actual requirements from the Bank of Bangkok website showing no such visa requirement. In the end they relented and did open an account. So, yes, I think Americans may have more problems in this respect.

[Jip99]

3 minutes ago, OZinPattaya said:

Maybe. Even after getting the completely pointless "embassy letter" to open a Bank of Bangkok account the bank manager still fought me claiming that I did not have a "long-term" visa, whereupon I had to bring up the actual requirements from the Bank of Bangkok website showing no such visa requirement. In the end they relented and did open an account. So, yes, I think Americans may have more problems in this respect.

 

 

Americans certainly have more issues with Thai banks. I opend an account at a rural branch of Bangkok Bank and the manager popped to ask if I was American. I replied that I wasn't and he said "That's OK then......... we don't like Americans"..

 

I was slightly taken aback but was aware that Thais can be direct (to the point of racist) at times.

[OZinPattaya]

31 minutes ago, Jip99 said:

 

 

Americans certainly have more issues with Thai banks. I opend an account at a rural branch of Bangkok Bank and the manager popped to ask if I was American. I replied that I wasn't and he said "That's OK then......... we don't like Americans"..

 

I was slightly taken aback but was aware that Thais can be direct (to the point of racist) at times.

I don't think they like western retirees either, especially early-retirees. If you look younger than an octogenarian, and are foolish enough to disclose retirement as your justification for opening a Thai bank account, they think you must be up to no good. My advice, tell the banker that you need to open a bank account to pay for a condo, or some such.

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by OZinPattaya

[Enoon]

21 minutes ago, OZinPattaya said:

You're correct, I did not. I'm not sure if it would mean anything anyway. The mere fact that the first transfer shows as FT doesn't mean any of the others will, a point I explicitly brought up to Transferwise and they confirmed.

 

One can't really blame them because it is not, in reality, a foreign transfer.

 

Anyone who doesn't understand what I mean should, perhaps, make themselves properly acquainted with the mechanics of the Transferwise "model".

 

Bluntly put, ones final destination bank/account/receiver does not receive the funds from a foreign source.

 

 

 

[OZinPattaya]

25 minutes ago, Enoon said:

 

One can't really blame them because it is not, in reality, a foreign transfer.

 

Anyone who doesn't understand what I mean should, perhaps, make themselves properly acquainted with the mechanics of the Transferwise "model".

 

Bluntly put, ones final destination bank/account/receiver does not receive the funds from a foreign source.

 

 

 

I think you're right about this, which should make people think twice about using such a service to transfer large sums if you must have the transaction to show as foreign. And also why I wouldn't hold your breath anticipating a real solution from Transferwise or any other similar service. My criticism of Transferwise is that there are potential issues transferring funds for certain purposes (I.e., visa requirements) and they're not exactly "transparent" about this, and their whole advertising bluster is about their transparency.

Edited October 29, 2019 by OZinPattaya

[seajae]

TW actually state that the money is not sent internationally but simply deposited in your account from a thai account after it is deposited/transferred to their account by you in the originating country, this is how they keep the prices down. All my TW transfers to my Bangkok bank account used to show up as foreign transfers until recently when they changed their banks but you can still show the correlation of your original deposit in the US and the arrival in your thai account to show it is from overseas. I am sure someone in here on another thread said they are able to get bank statements also showing it is originally from overseas. Been with TW for several years, they have always been very transparent about what they do

[CNXexpat]

If you have to write the receiving currency somewhere on the transfer document, you better write Baht instead of Bhat to get the right currency and not the currency of a small country somewhere in Africa ????

[lopburi3]

Transferwise is indeed targeted to lower levels of transfer in the 1-5k range for USD it would appear and for that/income seems to work well when used with Bangkok Bank and selecting the option to send the money for Thai Visa reasons from selection choice.  Indeed they seem to have listened and offer an option that if we check results in the FTT code.

 

As for the 15k limit perhaps that is the US trigger now (recall it used to be over 10k in most of country 30 years ago but was 4k in Florida for money laundering checks).  As Transferwise cost increases with amount makes sense to use SWIFT for larger transfers (remember to send USD however).  

[OZinPattaya]

8 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Transferwise is indeed targeted to lower levels of transfer in the 1-5k range for USD it would appear and for that/income seems to work well when used with Bangkok Bank and selecting the option to send the money for Thai Visa reasons from selection choice.  Indeed they seem to have listened and offer an option that if we check results in the FTT code.

 

As for the 15k limit perhaps that is the US trigger now (recall it used to be over 10k in most of country 30 years ago but was 4k in Florida for money laundering checks).  As Transferwise cost increases with amount makes sense to use SWIFT for larger transfers (remember to send USD however).  

A good point about sending USD. Does the USD then get converted by the Thai bank instead? Does this happen automatically? I'm not too clear on this. Thanks!

[JAS21]

22 minutes ago, CNXexpat said:

If you have to write the receiving currency somewhere on the transfer document, you better write Baht instead of Bhat to get the right currency and not the currency of a small country somewhere in Africa ????

Comeon...cut him some slack ... even some 'long timers' here have told me it is something that you wash yourself in ... ????

[lopburi3]

3 minutes ago, OZinPattaya said:

A good point about sending USD. Does the USD then get converted by the Thai bank instead? Does this happen automatically? I'm not too clear on this. Thanks!

Yes will be converted at current USD/TT buying rate into Baht.  There is a nominal .25% change in range 200-500 baht by most banks.

[OZinPattaya]

2 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Yes will be converted at current USD/TT buying rate into Baht.  There is a nominal .25% change in range 200-500 baht by most banks.

Thanks for the heads-up on this!

[4MyEgo]

1 hour ago, OZinPattaya said:

I don't think they like western retirees either, especially early-retirees. If you look younger than an octogenarian

I have used T/W a few times, started off small to see if and how long the process would take, now move lots of $20,000AUD twice per annum and always receive the money within 24 sometimes 48 hours, did a $5k top up the other day to get in some extra $'s before the 3 months period before my extension is due at the end of January, and it turned up in less than 24 hours with a good rate of 20.61 baht to one AUD.

 

The above said, when I opened my account with SCB, early retiree, never had an issue, and whenever I go in, once a year for the letter to collect for immigration that the funds have been in for 3 months, usually 1st cab into the bank off the rank so to speak, no one seems to know what they are doing, constantly referring to a manuel and I reckon I could drive the one hour 20 to immigration, then the one hour 20 return trip back and they would still be shuffling paperwork, and of course they want to charge me 200 baht for my time wasted....lol

 

Transferwise are the best thing that's happened with regard to money transfers since I have been here IMO, I think as someone else posted, it might be an American thing with the banks, not happy with how transferwise have been moving in on the banks turf, and they do hold a lot of power with people's money.

[ukrules]

2 hours ago, Jip99 said:

opend an account at a rural branch of Bangkok Bank and the manager popped to ask if I was American. I replied that I wasn't and he said "That's OK then......... we don't like Americans"..

 

I was slightly taken aback but was aware that Thais can be direct (to the point of racist) at times.

American banking rules make problems for banks all around the world, this is why they don't like having Americans as customers.

 

 

[OZinPattaya]

Sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm not sure what this .25% is. Not .25% of 800k baht, correct? Or maybe it is.

Edited October 29, 2019 by OZinPattaya

[Pravda]

Sorry OP, but Transferwise is not a service that enables old retired men solve their immigration issues. Frankly I find posts like this absurd to say the least. 

[Genericnic]

5 minutes ago, OZinPattaya said:

Sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm not sure what this .25% is. Not .25% of 800k baht, correct? Or maybe it is.

It is .25% of 800k baht (2,000 baht on 800k baht), however most banks have a minimum and maximum charge. I use Bangkok Bank and, if I remember correctly, its maximum is 500 baht. 

 

David

[blorg]

There are two options:

 

(1) Transferwise now has a new "funds for long stay" or somesuch option for the transfer reason for Thailand. This SHOULD ensure it comes through as a foreign transfer.

 

(2) Transferwise also now allows USD transfers to foreign USD bank accounts in Thailand. These are sent by SWIFT. In this case TW won't do the conversion, your Thai bank will, but Bangkok Bank at least has better rates than TW, certainly for large amounts. TW's fee for this is very low, around $4. Theoretically this is meant to go to a USD account in Thailand (i.e. a FCD) but I suspect if you sent it to a THB denominated account your Thai bank would convert it automatically. Easy to set up a Thai USD FCD if not anyway.

 

https://transferwise.com/help/14/currencies/2946451/sending-us-dollars-to-countries-outside-the-us

Finally- if you set up an account with TransferWise, you can transfer into it larger amounts with ACH, up to I think $250,000 in one go with a personal account. You may need to initiate these payments from your bank, rather than TransferWise, but you can definitely transfer more than $10,000 (the ACH debit limit). The $10,000 limit is for an ACH initiated by TransferWise.

 

https://transferwise.com/help/17/borderless-account/2893492/how-much-can-i-receive-and-keep-in-my-borderless-account

The maximum you can send in one transfer to Thailand is 2,000,000 THB, currently $66,000. You do not need to do multiple transfers to transfer 800,000, and it's better rate-wise if you don't.

Edited October 29, 2019 by blorg

[LomSak27]

First transferwise allow up 20,000 USD in a single transaction, unless they have changed in the last three months. You have to initiate 2 transfers which means waiting about 2 days for the first transaction to go through and notification sent back to you confirming your Thai bank has received it. At that point you can start the second transaction.
 

Correct, they do not really mention this and when it first Clunks up it gives you a “wire transfer option” if you key in over 20K USD. And they do not say much about what and why this appears. Wanks. You have to search around to find the documents and likely call them up to clarify what is going on. However the two transfers in total it took 5 days. As stated I could not start the 2^nd transfer until the first has been received.
 

Finally, the FT designation is meaningful if you are getting the 65,000 Baht per month amount. If it is the 800K that does not apply. Again for the 800k - No need for the proof the funds came from abroad.
 

Sorry you had such a tough time. I did mine through Wells Fargo also. Did not have a problem with that bank. Transferwise trying to pop you into a wire transfer without telling you what is going on?! Nothing more than typical British fumble farting behavior, which of course one should ALWAYS be on the alert for. Just saying.

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by LomSak27

[OZinPattaya]

2 hours ago, LomSak27 said:

First transferwise allow up 20,000 USD in a single transaction, unless they have changed in the last three months. You have to initiate 2 transfers which means waiting about 2 days for the first transaction to go through and notification sent back to you confirming your Thai bank has received it. At that point you can start the second transaction.
 

Correct, they do not really mention this and when it first Clunks up it gives you a “wire transfer option” if you key in over 20K USD. And they do not say much about what and why this appears. Wanks. You have to search around to find the documents and likely call them up to clarify what is going on. However the two transfers in total it took 5 days. As stated I could not start the 2^nd transfer until the first has been received.
 

Finally, the FT designation is meaningful if you are getting the 65,000 Baht per month amount. If it is the 800K that does not apply. Again for the 800k - No need for the proof the funds came from abroad.
 

Sorry you had such a tough time. I did mine through Wells Fargo also. Did not have a problem with that bank. Transferwise trying to pop you into a wire transfer without telling you what is going on?! Nothing more than typical British fumble farting behavior, which of course one should ALWAYS be on the alert for. Just saying.

 

 

 

I was always under the impression that the 800k method also requires the FT designation. Thanks for clearing that up.

[thinktoomuch]

7 hours ago, Moonlover said:

I just done a 'dummy run' to see what the result would be if I was to do a similar transaction through my UK bank account. Compared with T/W.

 

Firstly I know it would be possible and were I to use T/W, I would be 13,500 THB in pocket due to the favourable exchange T/W ex rate. That's despite being charged a whopping 120 GBP.

 

So sorry to hear that the O/P had this difficulty, but British clients need not despair.

 

One final point on this. The O/P mentioned this foreign transaction coding. I have found that this is not an issue, at least not with my IO. The T/W transaction slip was accepted as adequate proof that they are foreign remittances.

 

It's good news that some IOs will accept the Transferwise transaction slip as proof that they are foreign remittances. Hopefully they all will allow this in future.

 

When looking at transfer costs from the UK I find that transfers of about £5,000 or more are currently cheaper when using other methods like transferring from a Starling Bank account rather than using Transferwise but it's marginal even for £21,000 at current exchange rates.

 

For example at the time of writing the amount received from £21,000 sent to Thailand as Thai Baht would be 

 

813,331.25 Starling Bank (less any receiving bank SWIFT fee)

812,164.33 Transferwise

 

Both estimated delivery dates are the 31st of October 2019.

You may also have to deduct any SWIFT receiving fee for your Thai bank (I think it is fairly small with Bangkok Bank).

Of course these numbers will change as the exchange rate does.

 

The difference isn't huge and using Transferwise you would have some certainty over the costs and if you have used them before, the process too.

 

 

4 hours ago, blorg said:

(1) Transferwise now has a new "funds for long stay" or somesuch option for the transfer reason for Thailand. This SHOULD ensure it comes through as a foreign transfer.

 

Thanks for posting about this.

 

There is indeed now as "Funds for long term stay in Thailand" option.

 

I didn't see that option when I sent funds across a couple of weeks ago so either it's very new or I missed it.

 

Is there a place on this site where useful information like this is collated?

 

[roamer]

11 hours ago, OZinPattaya said:

I don't think they like western retirees either, especially early-retirees. If you look younger than an octogenarian, and are foolish enough to disclose retirement as your justification for opening a Thai bank account, they think you must be up to no good. My advice, tell the banker that you need to open a bank account to pay for a condo, or some such.

 

Indeed. Why would you not? Let the mouse get a sniff of the cheese...

[Moonlover]

4 hours ago, thinktoomuch said:

It's good news that some IOs will accept the Transferwise transaction slip as proof that they are foreign remittances. Hopefully they all will allow this in future.

I follow this closely and, to my knowledge, no one has yet had T/W transfers rejected, but it's still early days.

 

4 hours ago, thinktoomuch said:

When looking at transfer costs from the UK I find that transfers of about £5,000 or more are currently cheaper when using other methods like transferring from a Starling Bank account rather than using Transferwise but it's marginal even for £21,000 at current exchange rates.

This aspect is determined by ones own bank's transfer fees. The lower the fee, the lower the tipping point that makes T/W less attractive. My bank's SWIFT charge is 20 GBP and against that T/W wins all the way up to the limit of 2,000,000 THB per transaction. A bank with lower fees, (I have heard of fees as low as 4 GBP), clearly would become more competitive for higher sums.

 

T/W is all about lower sums, like monthly pension payments for which they are ideal. The O/P's experience. whilst unfortunate, isn't very typical.

[wgdanson]

10 hours ago, OZinPattaya said:

Sorry if this is a stupid question but I'm not sure what this .25% is. Not .25% of 800k baht, correct? Or maybe it is.

0.25% of whatever you have sent.

[Moonlover]

9 hours ago, blorg said:

(1) Transferwise now has a new "funds for long stay" or somesuch option for the transfer reason for Thailand. This SHOULD ensure it comes through as a foreign transfer.

 

I don't believe that to be true at all. What determines the code is which bank receives the and from which bank it came from. 

 

But, as I've said many times on here, the code is irrelevant, simply show the the IO the transaction slip from T/W. It worked for me. The IO already knew all about T/W.