Issues using WISE to transfer funds into Thai bank account for Retirement Visa?

[andre47]

4 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

Indeed you are totally wrong - you never want to send baht from USA - only send USD.  If you send Baht US banks will use a very, very bad exchange rate.  If you send USD Thai bank will provide published rate which will be better.  Sending 800k should be done by a Swift international transfer send USD more than the amount to allow for fees as this will insure low cost and recording as overseas transfer.   If you are planning on converting to non immigrant O visa in Thailand the money must show as from overseas for the conversion - so best not to use WISE (and for 800k will be cheaper not to do so).

wrong

1. the money must not come frome abroad
2. the exchange rate from the Thai bank is much much worse than the Wise exchange rate

[GrandPapillon]

2 minutes ago, andre47 said:

sorry, again: don't look only at the fees...you must look at the echange rate

but...up to you... it's your money

the exchange rates is not fundamentally different, only 0.10THB at best

 

the timing is better with WISE though, and you know the exchange rate before the transfer

 

it's awesome for small transfers, bigger transfer, I would rather use SWIFT

 

if you want to time perfectly exchange rates, then you need to buy SWAPs at a brokerage to cover your exchange rates

[andre47]

2 minutes ago, GrandPapillon said:

the exchange rates is not fundamentally different, only 0.10THB at best

 

the timing is better with WISE though, and you know the exchange rate before the transfer

 

it's awesome for small transfers, bigger transfer, I would rather use SWIFT

 

if you want to time perfectly exchange rates, then you need to buy SWAPs at a brokerage to cover your exchange rates

you don't know what you are talking about

good luck for your money!

[GrandPapillon]

2 minutes ago, andre47 said:

you don't know what you are talking about

good luck for your money!

like I said, someone here did a test over 100K USD with WISE and SWIFT and didn't find any fundamental differences

 

it's somewhere in one of the many WISE threads,

 

the numbers speak, it's facts, the rest is just opinions and arguments ????

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by GrandPapillon

[GrandPapillon]

3 minutes ago, andre47 said:

you don't know what you are talking about

good luck for your money!

sounds like you don't know what currency SWAPs are for ????

[lopburi3]

7 minutes ago, andre47 said:

wrong

1. the money must not come frome abroad
2. the exchange rate from the Thai bank is much much worse than the Wise exchange rate

No I am not wrong on point 1 - if he needs to convert tourist entry to non immigrant money must show foreign origin - and even if not doing that money can come from abroad.

 

The exchange rate is a bit lower than Wise but with Wise the fee increases with amount and for 800k it will pay to use Swift in most cases.

[andre47]

1 minute ago, GrandPapillon said:

like I said, someone here did a test over 100K USD with WISE and SWIFT and didn't find any fundamental differences

 

it's somewhere in one of the many WISE threads,

 

the numbers speak, it's facts, the rest is just opinions and arguments ????

 

unpossible!

Wise allow transfers only up to 2 Mill THB.

You are writing nonsense!

[alextrat1966]

8 minutes ago, andre47 said:

2. the exchange rate from the Thai bank is much much worse than the Wise exchange rate

Bs, you should only send THB through Wise for small amounts. I'd say 50,000 THB or so. 

 

Else send USD via SWIFT (no matter Wise or not).

 

Let's see, on November 2nd 2020 I sent 10,000 USD from my Transferwise to my BKK (first transaction I managed to spot on my bank book). 

 

I paid 10,004.26 USD in Transferwise (including $4.26 SWIFT fee). According to the official exchange rate back then, 10,000 USD = 311,096.81 THB (0.32144) 

And I got instead 309,880.22 THB. Which means the exchange rate (+ fees) the Thai bank applied was 1,216.22 THB lower than the official exchange rate.

 

Using Transferwise's THB didn't let me send 10,000 USD one time, I had to do 2x 5,000 USD. And each of the transactions had a 30 something USD fee. I would have paid almost double in fees!

 

 

[andre47]

1 minute ago, lopburi3 said:

No I am not wrong on point 1 - if he needs to convert tourist entry to non immigrant money must show foreign origin - and even if not doing that money can come from abroad.

 

The exchange rate is a bit lower than Wise but with Wise the fee increases with amount and for 800k it will pay to use Swift in most cases.

nobody has mentioned a tourist visa

bla bla bla - nonsense

[GrandPapillon]

3 minutes ago, andre47 said:

unpossible!

Wise allow transfers only up to 2 Mill THB.

You are writing nonsense!

that's why the 100K transfer was done over a year in 30K batch and the costs was at par with SWIFT

 

just get a clue, and do the calculations

 

the interbank rates at the THB banks are not bad, better than the originating banks, and WISE is less than 0.10 THB better

[0james0]

14 hours ago, DogNo1 said:

I don’t take any chances.  I always do an international wire transfer (SWIFT) from my brokerage in USD to my Bangkok Bank account.  Brokerage charges me nothing and Bangkok Bank charges me 200 baht.  The rate is favorable.  There has never been an error and the transfer arrives one working day later.  I use the monthly 65,000 baht option so that I can spend the money immediately.  The downside is that I must telephone the brokerage to initiate the transfer every month.  There is a standing order on file so I don’t need to provide the details.  I just specify the amount in USD and my Bangkok Bank account.  Some people are willing to chance transfer errors to save a little money.  I am not.  Also, I never cut it close on the amount transferred and leave a generous margin to avoid an insufficient amount of baht transferred.  

Does Not WISE use Swift?

[The Theory]

14 hours ago, NotReallyHere said:

Thai bank convert to Baht?

Yes, transfer it in $US 

it will be in Thai ฿  if your account is regular savings account in Thai bank. 

[MadMuhammad]

9 hours ago, GrandPapillon said:

WISE is very expensive for large transfer, 2 or 3 times the price of SWIFT, killing any advantages of best THB rates you could get

 

therefore avoid like the plague for 10K or more,

Absolutely disagree. When transferring 2mil baht a couple of times I explored all options and was close to 60000 baht better off with Wise than anyone else at that time.
 I’ve transferred close to half a million Australian dollars in 3 years and have found Wise rates better every time, even including their fee. 

[scubascuba3]

9 hours ago, alextrat1966 said:

 

 

 

Using Transferwise's THB didn't let me send 10,000 USD one time, I had to do 2x 5,000 USD. And each of the transactions had a 30 something USD fee. I would have paid almost double in fees!

 

 

The fee would have been nearly exactly the same 2x5k vs 1x10k, Wise charge a %

[treetops]

OK it's not even 7:00 am but I was doing not much else so have worked out some actuals for what's being discussed.

 

Wise - 30K USD gives 997,632.91 THB

 

Bangkok Bank using $30 USD as the originating bank fee and 500 baht as BBL fee.  BBL Exchange rate from here:

https://www.bangkokbank.com/en/Personal/Other-Services/View-Rates/Foreign-Exchange-Rates

 

((30,000-30) x 33.19) - 500 = 994,204.30 THB

 

 

This assumes no intermediate bank fees and Wise wins.  Using the same arithmetic for 2,000,000 THB received (the max Wise will do) also gives a win for Wise.

 

The only way I can see the Bank transfer winning is if you can negotiate something on the exchange rate, which has been reported, but even taking Bangkok Bank up to 33.3 still gives Wise the win at the lower level, although the Bank pips it at the 2,000,000 THB amount.

 

I doubt if any leeway the bank may give on the exchange rate will be enough to make them win in either scenario, but it would need others to say what movement in rate might be achievable to be 100% sure.

 

Let me know if you see anything wrong with the calculations.  It is early here!

[scubascuba3]

5 minutes ago, treetops said:

OK it's not even 7:00 am but I was doing not much else so have worked out some actuals for what's being discussed.

 

Wise - 30K USD gives 997,632.91 THB

 

Bangkok Bank using $30 USD as the originating bank fee and 500 baht as BBL fee.  BBL Exchange rate from here:

https://www.bangkokbank.com/en/Personal/Other-Services/View-Rates/Foreign-Exchange-Rates

 

((30,000-30) x 33.19) - 500 = 994,204.30 THB

 

 

This assumes no intermediate bank fees and Wise wins.  Using the same arithmetic for 2,000,000 THB received (the max Wise will do) also gives a win for Wise.

 

The only way I can see the Bank transfer winning is if you can negotiate something on the exchange rate, which has been reported, but even taking Bangkok Bank up to 33.3 still gives Wise the win at the lower level, although the Bank pips it at the 2,000,000 THB amount.

 

I doubt if any leeway the bank may give on the exchange rate will be enough to make them win in either scenario, but it would need others to say what movement in rate might be achievable to be 100% sure.

 

Let me know if you see anything wrong with the calculations.  It is early here!

The problem with comparing is you won't know the BB rate until it settles, so recalculate when it will normally settle maybe 3 days time

[treetops]

3 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

The problem with comparing is you won't know the BB rate until it settles, so recalculate when it will normally settle maybe 3 days time

Good point.  In that case no-one can ever know if the bank will win so it should always be Wise unless you like a little gamble IMO.

[Stocky]

15 hours ago, 0james0 said:

Does Not WISE use Swift?

No. Wise is peer to peer money transfer, your USD never leave the USA. Wise works with partner banks/fintech in each country it operates. Your transfer of USD to Thailand is matched with people wishing to transfer Baht to the US. So instead of wiring money between countries using SWIFT, your USD sent to Wise in the US is paid to clients in the US, whilst the corresponding Baht in Thailand is paid by Wise's partner to your Thai account.

[Stocky]

16 hours ago, GrandPapillon said:

the exchange rates is not fundamentally different, only 0.10THB at best

 

the timing is better with WISE though, and you know the exchange rate before the transfer

 

it's awesome for small transfers, bigger transfer, I would rather use SWIFT

 

if you want to time perfectly exchange rates, then you need to buy SWAPs at a brokerage to cover your exchange rates

 

16 hours ago, andre47 said:

you don't know what you are talking about

good luck for your money!

 

9 hours ago, MadMuhammad said:

Absolutely disagree. When transferring 2mil baht a couple of times I explored all options and was close to 60000 baht better off with Wise than anyone else at that time.
 I’ve transferred close to half a million Australian dollars in 3 years and have found Wise rates better every time, even including their fee. 

You can't make a categorical statement that Wise is better. It certainly is for most currency transactions, Singapore Dollar and UK Sterling in my case, but it's true for USD there is a point at about USD10k where SWIFT is the better bet. The demand for USD is such that the margin between buy and sell is so tight Wise can't compete above a certain amount. That isn't the case with most currencies. 

 

So it's wise to do your own homework for your specific currency pair to check if Wise remains competitive regardless the amount being transferred. Don't take someone else's word for it, as they may be talking about a very different currency pairing, and home bank tariffs.

[Longwood50]

I use Wise every month to transfer my social security.  To date, I have found it to be the best exchange rate versus the local banks.  Thursday I was in Bangkok Bank and the exchange rate there was 50 baht per dollar less than Transferwise.  

I do know you have to select the reason for the transfer and select for long term stay and expenses.  If you select any of the others Wise uses local ACH and it does not get recorded in the bank as a foreign transfer.  

I am not certain with the 800,000 baht method it matters if it is a local source or foreign but I would opt for the long term stay coding. 

You could check with your bank as to their buy rate for USD before you make the transfer.  I have a dual currency account with Wise.  I transfer the USD to Wise and then wait until I see a good exchange rate then convert to baht and then have Wise send it to my Bangkok bank account. 

[ubonjoe]

8 minutes ago, Longwood50 said:

Thursday I was in Bangkok Bank and the exchange rate there was 50 baht per dollar less than Transferwise.  

I think you meant satong not baht. The exchange rate yesterday was around 33 baht to the dollar.

[lopburi3]

4 minutes ago, Longwood50 said:

I do know you have to select the reason for the transfer and select for long term stay and expenses.  If you select any of the others Wise uses local ACH and it does not get recorded in the bank as a foreign transfer.  

Wise does not use ACH to send money - they have local accounts at banks in destination country and pay from those.  If you select long term stay  as reason for transfer it should use account at destination bank (in case of Bangkok Bank that will result is FTT notation on passbook deposit),  But better to flag destination account to always use same bank deposit as there have been hiccups with "long term stay" and there is never 100% guarantee. 

9 minutes ago, Longwood50 said:

I am not certain with the 800,000 baht method it matters if it is a local source or foreign but I would opt for the long term stay coding. 

It matters if money is to be used for converting to non immigrant O visa from immigration.

[GrandPapillon]

8 hours ago, treetops said:

((30,000-30) x 33.19) - 500 = 994,204.30 THB

in you case the difference in exchange rate is far more than the usual 0.10 THB, that explains why. A bigger spread between exchange rates will have significant impact. The problem is we don't get to see the exchange rate, even though it will be very close to Wise.

 

Jesus, they charge $162 in transfer fees when it's only $30 from other blood sucking banks ????

 

the advantage of WISE is that you can know the exchange rate BEFORE you send the money, and it comes at a cost for large transfer. For a small transfer, it's very cheap.

Edited January 29, 2022 by GrandPapillon

[GrandPapillon]

11 hours ago, MadMuhammad said:

Absolutely disagree. When transferring 2mil baht a couple of times I explored all options and was close to 60000 baht better off with Wise than anyone else at that time.
 I’ve transferred close to half a million Australian dollars in 3 years and have found Wise rates better every time, even including their fee. 

every time I did large transfer using SWIFT, I always got the best transfer rates from the THAI banks, better than the ones published on their website. For smaller transfer, it was always the worst.

 

The timing and the size of the transfer will have an impact on your experience,

 

what is for sure, is that for small transfer, nothing beats WISE in terms of speed and price

[Stocky]

1 hour ago, GrandPapillon said:

The timing and the size of the transfer will have an impact on your experience,

And your currency. You're talking about US Dollars, @MadMuhammad is talking about Australian Dollars. Wise will always be better than SWIFT on the Aussie dollar because the margin is so large.

 

The difference between buying and selling (TT Transfers) is usually 1% for the USD versus 4% on the AUD. 

 

.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Stocky

[Longwood50]

3 hours ago, ubonjoe said:

I think you meant satong not baht. The exchange rate yesterday was around 33 baht to the dollar

You are correct.  Thanks for the correction.  In Bangkok Bank the rate was 32.50 to buy USD.  On Wise it was about 33 on the same day. So you lost 1/2 baht per dollar for each dollar converted.  

[Longwood50]

3 hours ago, lopburi3 said:

Wise does not use ACH to send money - they have local accounts at banks in destination country and pay from those.

I may have used the wrong terminology.  Yes Wise uses local banks and for transfers other than long term stay, they merely show as electronic transfers the equivalent of ACH in the USA.  If the transfer is listed as for long term expenses in Thailand it comes through with the FTT coding which indicates it is a foreign money transfer.  

I had some of my Wise transfers not coded properly a couple of years ago.  Fortunately the immigration officer didn't care as he saw my Transferwise transfer slips.  However, i understand that some immigration personnel will not accept those coded with something other than FTT.  Since then, I have been very careful to list the reason as long term stay. 

[DogNo1]

My brokerage transfers the money on the day that I request it to the New York branch of Bangkok Bank.  It is received and posted to my bank account here the following working day at the rate for that day.  There is no settlement period.  Bangkok Bank charges me 200 baht to receive and convert the dollars to baht.  That's the only charge that I pay.  If Wise has a slightly better exchange rate, any advantage would be lessened by their transfer fee.  I transfer $2,300 each month.  Supposing that the Wise exchange rate is 0.5 baht better, I would get 1,500 plus 200 baht more by using Wise minus their transfer fee.  Out of curiosity, when I do my February international wire transfer, i will compare the Wise and Bangkok Bank rates on the day of the transfer.  Could somebody supply the amount that Wise charges to transfer $2,300?  I would like to calculate the advantage of using Wise.  

[treetops]

9 hours ago, DogNo1 said:

That's the only charge that I pay.

Bangkok Bank New York would appear to skim $10 USD off before they send it to Bangkok Bank in Thailand.

 

 

Even without that fee Wise would have been better using the figures from my comparison further up the thread.

 

Another poster above has said he has seen smaller differences in the exchange rate, but at the time of writing they were as stated so best to check every time.