Wise USD Account. Two Questions

[Onerak]

Today, I got an email out of the blue from Wise with a title "You have got a new USD account". I opened it and logged into Wise (after checking that it is not some kind of phishing attempt) and lo and behold I have a USD account with a Routing number and an Account number. It says 

There’s a 4.14 USD fee to receive wire transfers

Now I have two  few questions. Is it $4.14 for unlimited amount of wire transfer? If a put some money (let's say $2,000) in that account and then send it to Thailand, there is no ACH fees? I checked my last sent amount and it was $17.78 ACH fees to send $2,000 from my Bank to Thailand BBK. 

 

[Upnotover]

You can see the fees by going to the website.  It will be something like this;

[gamb00ler]

There are two ways to start an ACH transfer.  I have seen the methods referred to as Push and Pull.

 

If you ask WISE to transfer from your bank to the "new" US$ account it will be a Pull transfer and WISE will charge a fee for that service.  If you go to your bank and initiate a transfer to WISE it will be a Push transfer.  Most banks charge no fee for that type of transfer and WISE will also not charge a fee to receive it.

[Onerak]

3 hours ago, gamb00ler said:

f you ask WISE to transfer from your bank to the "new" US$ account it will be a Pull transfer and WISE will charge a fee for that service.  If you go to your bank and initiate a transfer to WISE it will be a Push transfer.  Most banks charge no fee for that type of transfer and WISE will also not charge a fee to receive it.

So, I push $2,000 from my XYZ bank to Wise account (using their routing and account no.). And then send it to my BKK bank. How much is the fee? I know the fee when Wise to do a pull to transfer to my BKK bank. Want to compare which one is better. 

[gamb00ler]

@Onerak

If you have funds in your WISE account you can see the fees for sending up to your current balance. Login into Wise, click on "Send Money", on the next page you should see two options.  Select the > symbol under the "Your Wise balance".  The next page will show you the fees for sending to THB.  If you try to send more than your current balance you will see that Wise will charge you additional fees for the transfer.  The cheapest way to send money is by using the funds currently held in your Wise account.  All other funding methods have added fees.

 

 

[eisfeld]

ACH is a system internally to the US. You can't send money via ACH from US to Thailand. What happens is you first have an ACH transfer from your US account to Wise US, then Wise internally converts the USD to THB and then issues a transfer in Thailand from their THB to your local THB.

 

As mentioned, the cheapest should be to do an ACH transfer from your bank to your Wise USD account. Then issue a transfer in Wise to your THB Thai account. If you read all of the info from Wise then you will notice there's no fee to receive ACH USD transfers. And the transfer to your local THB account will likely cost something like 30 THB or whatever. The conversion though will cost a bit.

[lopburi3]

The fee for $2,000 ACH pull to Wise today was $2.60.  For $500 is was 65 cents.  This fee is added to the withdrawal amount and then subtracted from Wise account.  You should be able to see cost to send by selecting international at top left and then the amount to send.  I did not send today so do not know what the fee would have been.

[steven100]

I cannot believe what I am reading ..... if you are worried about 65 cents you are in serious problem for money ... imo

[eisfeld]

39 minutes ago, steven100 said:

I cannot believe what I am reading ..... if you are worried about 65 cents you are in serious problem for money ... imo

Maybe because you didn't read that as no one wrote that they are worried about 65 cents ????

[Onerak]

I tried to pull 2,000 USD from my USA account xxx to wise account and the total fees shown is $6.93. After I pull the money to Wise account (it takes a few days but that is OK for me), when I send it to Thailand, is there any additional fees? Or it is a simple conversion from USD to THB?

If I don't do all these shenanigans of pulling money from my US bank to Wise bank and then sending it to my Thai BKK bank, my fees is $17.78 but it is almost instantaneous (or a maximum of 24 hours) not that I really care. 

 

[Lemsta69]

12 minutes ago, Onerak said:

my fees is $17.78

That's the total fee isn't it? Including ACH transfer fee, Forex fee, and THB30 fee to transfer funds to your Thai bank account?

[eisfeld]

Conversion fee for $2000 to THB is currently quoted to me as $12.13 which is roughly 0.6%.

[Lemsta69]

18 minutes ago, Onerak said:

when I send it to Thailand, is there any additional fees? Or it is a simple conversion from USD to THB?

Yes, there are additional fees. There's the Forex fee plus a 30 baht fee to send the THB to your Thai bank account.

[gamb00ler]

1 hour ago, steven100 said:

I cannot believe what I am reading ..... if you are worried about 65 cents you are in serious problem for money ... imo

LOL ... that one zoomed way over your head!  It seems very likely that he's not worried  about the 65 cents... it was probably intended as just a test of the process.  NOTE:  he didn't transfer any money to Thailand which he would have done if that was his purpose.

[Onerak]

40 minutes ago, eisfeld said:

Conversion fee for $2000 to THB is currently quoted to me as $12.13 which is roughly 0.6%.

Hmm. Does that $12.93 from your Wise USD account, or in other words 12.93 + $6.93? This was charged to me last time when I sent directly from my US bank xxx which is almost instantaneous. No shenanigans involved. 
 

[Onerak]

49 minutes ago, Lemsta69 said:

Yes, there are additional fees. There's the Forex fee plus a 30 baht fee to send the THB to your Thai bank account.

So basically it is a wash. I can't even save $10 by pulling money from my US bank to Wise bank and then sending it to Bangkok bank. I need to convince myself with hard proof  that I could save at least $10 per $2,000 transaction. Otherwise, it is not worth it for me.

[Onerak]

1 hour ago, Lemsta69 said:

That's the total fee isn't it? Including ACH transfer fee, Forex fee, and THB30 fee to transfer funds to your Thai bank account?

I really don't know or don't care. That what Wise charged me and deducted from 2,000 USD before converting the renaming to THB and sent the full conversion amount as you could see from the image screenshot I have posted. 

[eisfeld]

1 hour ago, Onerak said:

Hmm. Does that $12.93 from your Wise USD account, or in other words 12.93 + $6.93? This was charged to me last time when I sent directly from my US bank xxx which is almost instantaneous. No shenanigans involved.

Exactly as I said, it's just the conversion fee inside Wise. Not related to any transfers.

[Onerak]

8 minutes ago, eisfeld said:

Exactly as I said, it's just the conversion fee inside Wise. Not related to any transfers.

Thanks, from all these discussions it is obvious to me that that the Wise Bank account is useless. It is just another ploy for Wise to bring money from US bank to their account. No wonder, they created an account for me even if I did not ask them to do so and sent me an email inviting to initiate direct deposit. What a sneaky way. I would stick to my current method for sending money ot my Bangkok bank without using Wise account. 

 

 

[Lemsta69]

1 hour ago, Onerak said:

So basically it is a wash. I can't even save $10 by pulling money from my US bank to Wise bank and then sending it to Bangkok bank. I need to convince myself with hard proof  that I could save at least $10 per $2,000 transaction. Otherwise, it is not worth it for me.

Yeah that's what I found from doing wire transfers to Wise instead of BBL. Difference was minor and not with the hassle really. Wise are blaming increased forex costs but who knows, could just be a money grab.

[eisfeld]

There is no sinister ploy for these accounts and they are not useless. Having an account that can receive and send wire transfers from around the world can be quite useful. I know quite a few people and companies that use these Wise accounts instead of traditional bank accounts.

[Onerak]

50 minutes ago, eisfeld said:

There is no sinister ploy for these accounts and they are not useless. Having an account that can receive and send wire transfers from around the world can be quite useful. I know quite a few people and companies that use these Wise accounts instead of traditional bank accounts.

Well, if somebody can explain to me at least a few benefits of using Wise Account, instead of a traditional account, I am not convinced. Not saying there is a sinister ploy but a bank with direct deposit amounting to millions and millions of cash at hand at anytime gives enormous advantage with investors when raising  funds, but to the consumers like me it is useless unless it reduces my fees. 

[eisfeld]

11 minutes ago, Onerak said:

Well, if somebody can explain to me at least a few benefits of using Wise Account, instead of a traditional account, I am not convinced. Not saying there is a sinister ploy but a bank with direct deposit amounting to millions and millions of cash at hand at anytime gives enormous advantage with investors when raising  funds, but to the consumers like me it is useless. 

One usecase is getting accounts in regions that you normally can't get an account in so easily. I have a USD account in USA even though I'm european. That enables me to do free ACH transfers. Can't do that with a european bank for example. Same the other way with SEPA transfers.

[Onerak]

4 minutes ago, eisfeld said:

One usecase is getting accounts in regions that you normally can't get an account in so easily. I have a USD account in USA even though I'm european. That enables me to do free ACH transfers. Can't do that with a european bank for example. Same the other way with SEPA transfers.

You mean I can open an account in Euro? What advantage I will get by doing so?

[eisfeld]

35 minutes ago, Onerak said:

You mean I can open an account in Euro? What advantage I will get by doing so?

I already mentioned it, access to SEPA transfers within EU.

[gamb00ler]

19 hours ago, Onerak said:

Well, if somebody can explain to me at least a few benefits of using Wise Account, instead of a traditional account, I am not convinced. Not saying there is a sinister ploy but a bank with direct deposit amounting to millions and millions of cash at hand at anytime gives enormous advantage with investors when raising  funds, but to the consumers like me it is useless unless it reduces my fees. 

I occasionally need to exchange funds with family, businesses and friends in a couple of countries where I otherwise don't have a banking presence.  My Wise account works simply and efficiently for that purpose.  Those interactions would be much more difficult with a typical financial institution in the US and probably a nightmare with a Thai bank.

[Onerak]

31 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

I occasionally need to exchange funds with family, businesses and friends in a couple of countries where I otherwise don't have a banking presence.  My Wise account works simply and efficiently for that purpose.  Those interactions would be much more difficult with a typical financial institution in the US and probably a nightmare with a Thai bank.

I don't see why that will be a problem. Instead of pulling the money from Wise account,, they will pull the money from your US bank account and convert it to the currency of your choice. I tried to avoid doing C2B transaction with a business entity that won't take credit card because credit card provides me with fraud protection, and gives me cash back.

Any way for most people, I don't see any use of Wise banking account. From discussion above, I see that anybody (even non US residents) can open a US bank account with wise. If so, I have many Indian friends in silicon valley who complain about difficulty in opening a US account for their parents living in India with 10-year US visa and frequent US almost every year. May be I could suggest them to open an US bank account using Wise. Is that possible? And how would they fund the account?

[gamb00ler]

@Onerak, your questions are best taken up with Wise.