Cheapest Option(s) for Transfering Money from US Bank to Thai Bank

[Pib]

Switching U.S. banks is a pain if you have direct deposits, several auto payments, tenants depositing to the account, like I have. I just took a deep breath, opened my Fidelity account and started the process of getting deposits and payments switched over. It took about two months to get everything switched over before I closed my Bank of America accounts. I'm glad I did. I now get all my money to Thailand for almost no fees. All ATM fees are rebated including those charged by Thai banks. Free unlimited bill pay and ACH transfers with Fidelity. There is no fee for my ACH transfers to my New York Bangkok bank (Bangkok Bank charges a small receiving fee). The exchange rates are superb. I feel like I've finally gotten one over on the banks.

gdringir,

Good for you. While switching to another bank involves some work, with a little planning and patience it can be easily accomplished like you have done. And it does feel good you are not be "fee'ed to death."

Heck, after arriving Thailand a half dozen or so years ago I too ended up switching to different U.S. banks and credit card companies primarily due to fees associated with foreign transactions such as funds transfers, card usage, etc. While BoA is fine for usage within the U.S., when a person uses their products/services for foreign transactions it can get pricey expecially if using their credit/debit card products...plus BoA has account minimums to avoid monthly maintenance fees....while these account minimums are not too high for most, I do realize they may be for some...and there are many banks which don't have account minimums. While BoA has a 3 business day ACH fee of only $3 that's still $3 more than "free" ACH transfers at banks like USAA and many others. Plus you ain't got all of that BoA SafePass stuff to put up with.

I pretty much consider banks/credit card companies like renewing car insurance....a person needs to shop around and occasionally change to get the best deal. Lord knows I've switched banks and card companies quite a bit since arriving Thailand and those switches have ended up providing me better banking products/services and lower fees....I prefer my money to stay in my pocket versus going into the fee pocket of banks. And none of those switches were hard...it just took a month or so to get everything relined up like I wanted it like if switching direct deposits, getting the credit/debit cards in hand, etc.

Not hard to do in most cases...just takes a little time and effort....but I know I'm preaching to the choir.

[Pib]

Deleted...duplicate.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Pib

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The ACH to BKK Bank New York route and then onward to BKK Bank Thailand is almost certainly the most economical means of transferring funds from the U.S. to Thailand. And obviously works well/better for larger amounts, because the relative fees get smaller (as a %) the larger the amount being sent.

The ATM route is still viable, and economical, provided you're using a U.S. bank card (like Schwab, among others) that charges no foreign currency fee and reimburses the Thai banks' 150/180 baht fees. But I believe the most you can get from a single Thai ATM pull these days is 30,000 baht, at Ayudhya, TMB and CIMB. The other banks' ATMs are less, 20K or so per pull.

As various members have posted on here, debit card counter withdrawals are still do-able, providing you can find a branch that will do them instead of referring you to their ATMs. No withdrawal fee from the Thai end. But make sure your U.S. card also has no fees. And the advantage is the only limit will be your U.S. card's daily limit, not the 20K or 30K Thai ATM limits.

Lastly, I'm not sure the Cap One 360 card is such a great deal as some have posted here. For starters, I believe they're issuing MasterCard logo cards, which starts out with a lower exchange rate than VISA logo cards. And then on top of that, while Cap One 360 doesn't charge their own foreign currency fee, they do pass along MasterCard's foreign currency fee of 0.2 or 0.4% or so. So between the two, you're taking a hit.

Also, Cap One is very finicky about foreign accounts, and seeing non U.S. IP addresses when logging in, etc etc. All in all, I'd say there are other better debit card banking choices available.

Edited April 24, 2014 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[gdringjr]

A big problem in doing what I've done and dumping my eighteen year relationship with Bank of America is that I felt some strange sort of loyalty because of our tenure. I've now divorced Bank of America and am finally rid of that whining, expensive and self-centered wench. My new marriage with a beautiful, young bank that rarely says no and doesn't have her hand in my pocket is just delightful. I wish I would have dumped the witch years ago.

Edited April 24, 2014 by gdringjr

[danmarnj]

Looks like Walmart is getting into the game. I've been using xe.com and they charge me 22.00 if I wire funds from the US to thailand. I will look into this further as when I need to transfer funds again

https://walmart.moneygram.com/MGOWap/flows/home?execution=e3s1

[Berkshire]

I'm not one of the lucky "rich" American Farang"s, My family (Thai wife and 2 teenage sons) and I live on my monthly Social Security funding. so I only deal in my monthly SocSec amount. I banked with Wells Fargo for years and have had to use ATM's ever since I got to Thailand(April 2006) so I have been here 8 years, Since my monthly SocSec is small amount I got real tired of paying ATM fees to US and Thai banks. Also ATMs have a 20,000 Baht limit on each withdrawal and most US banks have a daily withdrawal limit. Too make a long story short I was paying $5(150B) to US bank and $5 (150B) to Thai bank (SCB) for a total of $10(300B) a pop every time I used ATM. It took 3 withdrawals to get my monthly SocSec money. Which of course meant I was paying $10 X 3 = $30(1,000B) a month. !!!. I kept searching the web every 2 or 3 months for a cheap way to get money. Never found it. A year ago a friend from my home town came to our house (we built new house 3 years ago for 1 Million Baht) for a visit and told me about USAA Bank in San Antonio TX. They don't charge you any ATM fees, domestic or foreign at all and if a foreign bank charges you an ATM fee USAA Bank will rebate that fee back to you every 30 days (statement date). My hometown wasn't San Antonio by the way. I went online and opened a FREE checking account with USAA Bank and deposited only the minimum $25. every month for a year I would transfer small amounts from Wells Fargo to USAA by way of an ACH (free) fund transfer than use my USAA debit card at Thai ATM. USAA never failed to rebate any and all ATM fees. I have never had a problem with USAA Bank . USAA also allows me to use my home address here in Thailand and any snail mail or new debit card(s) are mailed directly from USSA Bank in San Antnio TX at no charge to my Thai home address. I just recently closed my WF account and now have my SocSec funds going to USAA Bank via Direct Deposit. I will no longer pay one red cent to get my SocSec funds to me here in Thailand.

USAA Bank was founded as a service for active and/or past military. I only served the minimum for my tour (4 years) and got out in 1960. However I don't believe they still require any past military affiliations and is hopefully now open to even non-military

Here is USAA Bank URL if you wanna to give'em a try

https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/bank_main?akredirect=true

Off topic, but you are one of the lucky Americans that receive Social Security. Be grateful. Mine jumped to age 67 & have no doubt as I get closer it will jump again to 70. Given, at 70, I know they will say, "sorry, it's all gone".

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

OT as well, but aren't you eligible for SSA payments at 62, albeit for a lesser amount?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Re MoneyGram and Western Union, I've never seen any example of those as economical ways of sending funds to Thailand.

I just did a quick query with the Walmart/Moneygram site. To send $1000 costs $1019 with their fee added, and supposedly according to their calculator would get the recipient 31,683.40 baht. That works out to a net exchange rate of 31.093 including the cost of their fee.

In checking the MasterCard website today for U.S. - Thai baht exchange, their rate is 32.141 baht per dollar. And VISA's rate would be even better, as it always is, currently showing 32.28.

Thus, the Moneygram approach is costing you more than 1 baht loss per dollar exchanged. And that's assuming the U.S. credit or debit card used has no fees of its own for doing a Moneygram transfer debit.

[Pib]

A big problem in doing what I've done and dumping my eighteen year relationship with Bank of America is that I felt some strange sort of loyalty because of our tenure. I've now divorced Bank of America and am finally rid of that whining, expensive and self-centered wench. My new marriage with a beautiful, young bank that rarely says no and doesn't have her hand in my pocket is just delightful. I wish I would have dumped the witch years ago.

Time heals all wounds. In BoA case, give it another day and you will have completely forgot about her.

By the way, as JimGant mentioned you can get the USAA maximum daily transfer limit of $5,000 permanently raised, but you need to request it and see "if" they will approve it. I requested my limit be raised and it was raised very significantly north of $5,000. I had been planning to ask for an increase just in case I ever get back into the mode of during ACH transfers and I wanted to transfer more than $5,000 and do it in one transfer to minimize transfer fees. I had been meaning to do this probably for two years after I saw a post one time that Jim had done it. I called USAA twice to get a feel of what was needed to possibly get an approval....the first call was well over a year ago and they said I could fax or mail in a request with some justification and their operations section would approve or disapprove...I then procrastinated about a year and called again....this time they basically said the same thing but also I could also send the request via my USAA online account email. So, I sent in a request with justification via USAA email as to the amount I needed/wanted...two days later I had the approval and it's way north of $5,000. So, that is permanently in-place now where I can just go online, make a few transfer clicks, and the money transfer is on its way if I ever need to send more than $5,000 in one transfer. Transfer limits can vary greatly from bank to bank like how BoA has a very liberal daily transfer amount limit which was basically unlimited if using their SafePass system. Or the other extreme like the Pentagon Federal Credit Union which unless something has changed will limit online ACH transfers to $50/day until your account has been opened 6 months with them....then they automatically bump it up to $5000/day.

[nkped]

The general idea is to transfer money to the USAA account prior to the next LOS trip and then do a wire transfer to Kasikorn for $25. USAA represents the wire transfer can be initiated over the phone.

USAA international wire transfers are now $45, not $25 (unless something recently has changed). They can be done over the phone -- and setting up a "template" with all the pertinent information for the receiving account streamlines matters (you just provide the amount and the "template" nickname).

But, haven't wired from USAA in years, as the ACH transfer is a lot cheaper. And, USAA raised my daily ACH transfer ceiling considerably above the standard $5000.

Might be cheaper to establish a Bangkok Bank account into which to ACH money to Thailand ($5/10 vs $45). Get an online account with Bangkok Bank, then third party transfer to your Kasikorn account. Or switch completely to Bangkok Bank.

I stand corrected. I had misread the USAA web site https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/banking_wire_transfer_instructions They break it into two fees for a total of $45.