Transferwise

[ouagadougou]

Hi,

 

I'm looking into using Transferwise for the first time.  Sending from a US account to Thailand.

 

They have many options but the two I'm considering are Debit Transfer (ACH) & Wire Transfer.

 

ACH requires connecting your online bank acct through their website and it seems a little annoying.

 

Question:

What fees are charged by the Thai bank when receiving money through ACH vs Wire?

 

Hope I'm making at least a little sense.

 

Thanks,

[Upnotover]

I use from the UK and there are no fees at the receiving end.  As far as I can tell from the US it's the same as the receiving bank is getting THB as a domestic transfer.

 

[ouagadougou]

Thanks Upnotover.

 

Any idea if there are additional fees on the receiving end for a Wire Transfer compared to an ACH Debit Transfer?

Edited September 25, 2020 by ouagadougou

[Mike Teavee]

From UK & Singapore I send the money from Transferwise to lock in the rate, then login to my online banking & send it to the relevant TransferWise account (be it in UK or Singapore) quoting my customer ref.

 

Once they receive the money they initiate the Transfer at the previously set rate, no charges when it hits my Bangkok Bank account.

 

1 tip, if you’re relying on the transfers showing up as Overseas Transfer (for Visa Extension etc...) then set the reason for transfer as “Funds for long term stay in Thailand” 

Edited September 25, 2020 by Mike Teavee

[Upnotover]

48 minutes ago, ouagadougou said:

Thanks Upnotover.

 

Any idea if there are additional fees on the receiving end for a Wire Transfer compared to an ACH Debit Transfer?

As far as I can tell no, there will be no additional fees.  

[GolfnBeer]

HI, 

 

Just an FYI, I have used transferwise and it is the most reasonable for transfers IMO.  However,  On my last trip I had opened a charles schwab account and they do not charge for Any ATM Withdrawals.  Both transferwise and Charles Schwab make money on the exchange rate they charge you.   No I did not make a comparison.   

[uncleP]

There is a small charge for receiving overseas transfers which goes up to a % for transfers over 1.5 million baht. Transferwise is a local bank to bank transaction so is free.

[Peter Denis]

9 hours ago, GolfnBeer said:

...

Just an FYI, I have used transferwise and it is the most reasonable for transfers IMO.  However,  On my last trip I had opened a charles schwab account and they do not charge for Any ATM Withdrawals.  Both transferwise and Charles Schwab make money on the exchange rate they charge you.   No I did not make a comparison.   

Contrary to many banks who use their own exchange rate when transferring your funds, on top of the service fee they charge for this, and the possible handling fee from the receiving bank, TransferWise uses the mid-exchange rate which is the ACTUAL exchange-rate and only charges a service fee (% of the transaction on a gliding scale for larger amounts).

As they do not actually send the money, but have arrangements with 3 Thai banks to transfer the money to your Thai bank-account, there is also no domestic transfer fee.

In most cases - and surely for smaller transfers, say 1.000 to 3.000 Euro, you will get more THB for your Euro than any other transfer method, and on top of that the process is fully transparent (you will know beforehand EXACTLY how much THB you will get on your Thai bank-account) and very fast (between minutes and max 1-2 working days).

[lopburi3]

Believe you are talking apples and oranges with the ACH and Wire.  ACH requires your bank send or Transferwise pull from your account.  Pull is very easy and no contact with your home bank required once set up through the 3rd party sign on method.  So once you long into your home back account you will not have to do again and only have to ask TransferWise to send the money using ACH bank transfer.  The only fee will be what they indicate for the amount of money transferred.  Wire would be another way to fund the transfer (not to send to Thailand by wire - that would not involve Transferwise and be SWIFT from your bank).  You can also fund with cards.  But believe most of us use the ACH pull from Transferwise and have no issues and one minute sign on to Transferwise takes care of everything.

[eyup]

Been using transferwise for years many of my mates use it too Very easy to set up no fees at the thai end it goes straight into your thai bank account You can also get a c/card to load up

[Pib]

OP,

  As lopburi3 explained above you may be misunderstanding the Transferwise "funding" process....that is, how you get money to Transferwise so they can they exchange your dollars to baht and transfer the baht to Thailand.

 

   Allow Transferwise to accomplish a "Bank Debit (ACH)"....that is, "pull" the funds from your US bank to fund the Transferwise transfer is the cheapest over the other methods of bank wire or debit/credit cards.

 

   If you prefer to go with bank wire to fund your transfer then you must get with your US bank and send a "domestic wire" to Transferwise to fund the Transferwise transfer.   And you probably incur a $20 and up domestic wire fee from your US bank to send that wire to Transferwise along with the Transferwise fees for receiving that wire/transfering the money.  Now that is not cheap and is annoying.  

 

   Why do you consider allowing Transferwise to accomplish a Bank Debit (ACH) as annoying?   Yes, it does require you to possibly logon onto your US bank acct "through" a Transferwise portal "OR" setting up an ACH transfer link via the trial deposit method.  Which method Transferwise will use will depend on your US bank.   DO NOT worry about logging onto your US bank through the Transferwise portal as it's perfectly safe....you logon credentials are not seen/save during that process...such methods are now widely being used.  Heck, if you ever paid for an Ebay buy using PayPal you are basically doing the same thing...or if using paying via PayPal, Amazon Pay, etc., when buying stuff at may other online shopping sites.

 

   Now there is another way to "push" money to Transferwise using "ACH"....that is, you push money from your US bank to Transferwise by free/low cost ACH transfer from your US bank.  Same-same as ACH pushing money from your US bank to another one of your US banks.   It also lowers the overall cost of the Transferwise transfer.  Just study-up on "multi-currency acct" (a.k.a., borderless acct) on the Transferwise website.  But a borderless acct (a.k.a, multi-currency acct" is not required to do a Transferwise transfer. Nor is signing up for the Transferwise Debit card required.  

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Pib

[singasong]

1 hour ago, Peter Denis said:

Contrary to many banks who use their own exchange rate when transferring your funds, on top of the service fee they charge for this, and the possible handling fee from the receiving bank, TransferWise uses the mid-exchange rate which is the ACTUAL exchange-rate and only charges a service fee (% of the transaction on a gliding scale for larger amounts).

As they do not actually send the money, but have arrangements with 3 Thai banks to transfer the money to your Thai bank-account, there is also no domestic transfer fee.

In most cases - and surely for smaller transfers, say 1.000 to 3.000 Euro, you will get more THB for your Euro than any other transfer method, and on top of that the process is fully transparent (you will know beforehand EXACTLY how much THB you will get on your Thai bank-account) and very fast (between minutes and max 1-2 working days).

typo

Edited September 26, 2020 by singasong

[ouagadougou]

Thank you everyone.  I'm now waiting for the funds to appear in my Thai bank acct.

 

Pib:

 

The slightly annoying part to the Bank Debit (ACH) process was my US bank required a pin code to be sent to my primary telephone number to complete the transaction.  Unfortunately they only allow a contact phone number to have max 10 digits so I can't use my Thai mobile.  I had to have someone back home answer the phone and pass the pin to me... even then the pin was time sensitive and had to do it a couple times to complete the process.  Anyway, it's all good and I thought TransferWise was great compared to my dealings with regular banks.

 

 

[Pib]

35 minutes ago, ouagadougou said:

Thank you everyone.  I'm now waiting for the funds to appear in my Thai bank acct.

 

Pib:

 

The slightly annoying part to the Bank Debit (ACH) process was my US bank required a pin code to be sent to my primary telephone number to complete the transaction.  Unfortunately they only allow a contact phone number to have max 10 digits so I can't use my Thai mobile.  I had to have someone back home answer the phone and pass the pin to me... even then the pin was time sensitive and had to do it a couple times to complete the process.  Anyway, it's all good and I thought TransferWise was great compared to my dealings with regular banks.

 

 

Yeap...the ol' two factor authorization (2FA) issue for certain banking transactions/logons...that can be annoying and is quite common now days...and becoming more common.  

 

Now if you activate the Transaferwise multi-currency acct (borderless acct) option on your Transferwise acct you can then "push" funds to your borderless acct via ACH from your US bank.   The funds arrive your Transferwise borderless acct in a day or two or three (depends how fast your US bank is)....then you can fund your Transferwise transfer from the balance of funds in your borderless acct.  This also does away with the Bank Debt (ACH) part of the Transferwise upfront fee making the transfer cheaper.   Will make your transfer faster also as Transferwise already has your funds. 

 

Now to activate the borderless acct Transferwise will require you do a Bank Debit (ACH) of $20 during that process....just something Transferwise does to activate the borderless acct....it's a one time thing.  For you this will mean another 2FA logon with your bank. 

 

Once the funds arrive the borderless acct is activated and you get Transferwise routing and acct number info so you can setup an ACH transfer link at your US bank to push funds to Transferwise via ACH.  Most banks allow a person to also setup an "automatic" ACH transfer....like you want to push out say $1000 every month, two weeks, etc.  With this automatic push now occurring to your Transferwise borderless acct there is always money setting in it to fund your Transferwise transfer....no need to contact your bank....no 2FA authorization process. 

 

If you need to transfer funds on a regular basis...like monthly....this is something you might want to consider doing.  BUT KEEP IN MIND, Transferwise is "not" a bank....your borderless acct with them is NOT a bank acct with any FDIC deposit protection like your US bank...so, you shouldn't keep any large amount of funds in your Transferwise borderless acct for any length of time.....maybe just a few days to a week in order to fund your next Transferwise transfer.

 

 

[ouagadougou]

Thanks for that Pib.

 

If you aren't already on TW's payroll, you should look into it  ????

 

 

[EricTh]

On 9/25/2020 at 9:37 PM, ouagadougou said:

Thanks Upnotover.

 

Any idea if there are additional fees on the receiving end for a Wire Transfer compared to an ACH Debit Transfer?

All the fees are displayed upfront before you send. No hidden fees unlike SWIFT bank transfer.

[JimGant]

On 9/26/2020 at 11:44 PM, EricTh said:

All the fees are displayed upfront before you send. No hidden fees unlike SWIFT bank transfer.

Well, as PIB has explained, the wire fee is the domestic wire fee your bank will charge to send the money to TransferWise's account in the US. TransferWise has no way of knowing this fee, so it's not posted, unlike, say, the bank debit (ACH), debit card, or credit card fee (but TW does have a posted flat $5.34 fee for wire transfers, in addition to what your bank charges). Thus, you'll need to obtain this fee from your bank to be able to compute the final effective rate you'll be paying. And, as there's no fee cost for transfers when you set up a borderless account with TransferWise, there are some considerable savings using this method to send money to Thailand. For example, sending $20,000 will cost you $62 for a bank debit method, but nothing for a borderless account. That's real money.

[mtls2005]

Background: ACH funded WISE transfer from U.S to BBL/THL

 

Transfer initiated successfully (Plaid-linked to BofA, passed BofA 2FA) WISE says "We received your USD"

 

Transfer to be paid out (to BBL) today, in a few hours.

 

 

WISE Q&A:

 

How long does it take for my money to reach Wise?

It usually takes 1–4 working days for your money to reach us. And you’ll usually see the debit in your bank account within 2–3 working days of making the transfer. 

Since it can take some time for the money to reach us, be sure you have enough money in your account while you wait for the debit.

 

 

Questions:

 

When are the funds removed from the source bank. In my case BofA, and while I received an alert from them re: Plaid/WISE (plan to unlink this once the transfer is completed), the source funds have not yet been removed.

 

For those who've funded WISE via ACH from the U.S., what has been your experience with the funds being removed from the source bank?

 

 

[lopburi3]

15 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

Background: ACH funded WISE transfer from U.S to BBL/THL

 

Transfer initiated successfully (Plaid-linked to BofA, passed BofA 2FA) WISE says "We received your USD"

 

Transfer to be paid out (to BBL) today, in a few hours.

 

 

WISE Q&A:

 

How long does it take for my money to reach Wise?

It usually takes 1–4 working days for your money to reach us. And you’ll usually see the debit in your bank account within 2–3 working days of making the transfer. 

Since it can take some time for the money to reach us, be sure you have enough money in your account while you wait for the debit.

 

 

Questions:

 

When are the funds removed from the source bank. In my case BofA, and while I received an alert from them re: Plaid/WISE (plan to unlink this once the transfer is completed), the source funds have not yet been removed.

 

For those who've funded WISE via ACH from the U.S., what has been your experience with the funds being removed from the source bank?

 

 

Not sure of the question but have had amounts of 1.5k or less be paid out without apparent need for real receipt from ACH - if for living expense can be here in seconds or if long term stay deposit made at 1400.  Other times have been larger and can indeed take one to a few days.  Also believe if you ask for several small from same bank first may be fast and second wait for receipt of funds.

[mtls2005]

13 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Not sure of the question

I am not interested in the elapsed time to receipt/deposit. WISE (app and website/push notifications) do an AWESOME job updating you on the status

 

Original question: 

 

1 hour ago, mtls2005 said:

When are the funds removed from the source bank.

 

[JimGant]

This most recent transfer mirrors earlier transfers:

Requested $20k transfer via bank debit (ACH) on July 14. Wise advised the next day (July 15) that they had received my money from USAA account; no indication of this when I logged into my USAA account online. Wise advised money sent to Bangkok Bank on July 16, where it was received at 1400hrs. When I logged into USAA on July 16, a line item dated July 15 reflected the $20k debit. Obviously, some differential due to the time difference between Texas and Thailand.

[mtls2005]

2 hours ago, JimGant said:

This most recent transfer mirrors earlier transfers:

 

Thank you.

 

Yes, the transfer hit my BBL account (shows online as an International Transfer, will show as FTT in my passbook) at 14:09 - the exact time WISE provided since the transfer was initiated - and then within a minute or two, a transaction popped into my BofA account, the transaction showing as "Processing".

 

Very impressed with this service, I wanted to try it as a back-up, and the web and app interface/functionality are great.

 

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the (Transfer) WISE threads here over the years.

[Chivas]

One point reference Transferwise (Wise) and have only noticed it recently but they are sharply reducing the quoted "rate" at weekends as opposed to interbank (as always) during the week

 

It certainly hasn't always been like that and someone else noted it elsewhere couple weeks ago

 

Instead of 46 dead for Sterling they're only quoting 45.73 this weekend way down... Last weekend was the same with a 24 Satang dip which immediately disappeared early Monday

Wait until Mondays to transfer although naturally rates move in real time when markets are open

[BritManToo]

1 hour ago, Chivas said:

Instead of 46 dead for Sterling they're only quoting 45.73 this weekend way down... Last weekend was the same with a 24 Satang dip which immediately disappeared early Monday

Wait until Mondays to transfer although naturally rates move in real time when markets are open

This morning Wise paid 45.7 when the XE rate was 45.8

On 1,000 GBP that's a whole 100bht I lost ..........

[Chivas]

58 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

This morning Wise paid 45.7 when the XE rate was 45.8

On 1,000 GBP that's a whole 100bht I lost ..........

No chap Sterling/Dollar closed 46 dead screenshot attached albeit you've missed the point, probably deliberately

Wise have gone from offering full interbank 24/7 to now having a reduced rate "out of hours" at weekends

 

Doesnt matter if its 5 or 50 Satang. Now it could be because of mounting uncertainty over the all important Dollar/Baht but nonetheless its a change from the recent past

 

Scroll on by fella if you're not interested...out

 

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by Chivas

[BritManToo]

Odd that, because XE.com doesn't show it reaching 46 in the past week ...........

[treetops]

On 8/1/2021 at 9:40 AM, BritManToo said:

Odd that, because XE.com doesn't show it reaching 46 in the past week ...........

Neither do other sources although this may only update once per day.  Still too far away from 46 to make sense.

[treetops]

On 8/1/2021 at 7:05 AM, Chivas said:

One point reference Transferwise (Wise) and have only noticed it recently but they are sharply reducing the quoted "rate" at weekends as opposed to interbank (as always) during the week

Both showing 46.41xx just now (Saturday 20:12 Thai time).

[KhunBENQ]

11 minutes ago, treetops said:

Both showing 46.41xx just now (Saturday 20:12 Thai time).

Similar for Euro.
On weekend usually very little change in Thai Baht "midmarket" rate as shown on xe.com.

EUR/THB:

xe.com 39.35243

WISE   39.3523

 

GBP/THB:

xe.com 46.411478

WISE   46.4191

 

In the past I have observed some erratic rate jumps on xe.com after Friday.

No idea what it meant and it usually came back until Monday morning.

Currently really very steady, only ripples in the diagram.

WISE never changed the rate after late Friday evening (Thai time).

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by KhunBENQ

[JetsetBkk]

Looks like I had better get my Wise transfers sorted out - Krung Thai  bank stopped the S.W.I.F.T. "service" on August 1st.

 

How can they just "opt out" of it?