Best way to transfer money? Western union or bank wire?

[German Viking]

Best way to transfer money? Western union or bank wire? Thank you.

For Western Union transfers, neither you nor the overseas recipient is required to have a bank account. For bank transfers, both parties must have bank accounts in their respective countries or Transferring Money with Western Union.

Western Union,

you simply go into a bank, a Western Union office or any institution that offers their services and fill out the appropriate form. It asks for basic details as well as a declaration regarding money laundering. You then hand over the amount of cash that you want the person overseas to receive and pay the required fee. Within 24 hours, and often sooner, the recipient can pick up the cash at any Western Union office or receiving location in the designated city, state or province. The recipient will be asked for identification as well as a code that is given to the sender.

Bank Transfer,

If you wish to conduct a bank transfer, you ask your bank to send money from your account to the account of a person that you wish to receive the money. A fee is charged and you can choose whether it is deducted from the amount that you send or whether it is paid as an extra charge from your account. Most bank transfers to overseas destination bank accounts are facilitated using a system that is commonly known as SWIFT. This stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.

Costs,

The charges for using Western Union can vary depending on the destination for your money. They decrease relatively and are subject to the amount that you send. However, there is information available for standard fees. For example, if you send between $50 and $100, the fee is $14. If you send between $1,000 and $1,250, the fee is $55. For bank transfers using SWIFT, a transfer that is guaranteed to be completed within 3 to 5 working days will cost a minimum of $27 and fees will be deducted not only by the receiving bank but also by any intermediate bank or banks.

Security and Value

Because bank transfers require that both you and the recipient have bank accounts, it is considered to be a more secure way of sending money than by Western Union. However, bank transfers have variable charges and these can be costly. One further consideration is that you might not be told all of the charges when you send the money because your bank may not know how many intermediate banks will be used or their charges.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

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When you use Western Union like you while filling in the form manually and in top cash take out in Thailand manually then you getting the highest punishment in fees and in top a shit exchange rate.

You should read my 2 posts before there is the best option explained to do this properly with WU.

[hawker9000]

Read in another thread that getting a credit card advance from a Bangkok Bank branch in Bangkok (inside the branch from a teller, NOT an ATM), and then immediately going online to pay off the cc co. before any fees are assessed, offers a very good exchange rate. 'Never done it, but plan to try it.

Edited June 23, 2014 by hawker9000

[Pib]

Not always true about fees charged for interbank transfers. My financial institution charges me nothing (and it's in my account shortly after the opening bell on the next business day).

It is not only about the fees, it is also about the exchange rate.

This is why I like Western Union for certain emergency cases and as I posted before you have different options with Western Union now.

For example I choose from Bank account in germany to a bank account in Thailand transfer made via Western Union 1 - 2 banking days, no fees from WU or any of the involved banks.

With a better exchange rate as to use the Creditcard and take it cash out in Thailand.

All done by Westen Union and the good thing is I know in advance clear the amount in THB which would arrive with no hidden fees.

Do you have any idea the WU exchange rate you got? Like you got X-baht per Euro on date X to compare against the Thai bank TT Buying Rate used for incoming wire transfers.

Additionally, there is a 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) funds receiving fee on the Thai bank end...this fee is applied "prior" to posting to your account so it can appear no fee was applied but indeed there was. I'm sorry, I just have a hard time believig WU provides a good exchange rate when there are many, many TV posters over the years talking about how bad the WU exchange rate is.

[Upnotover]

Not always true about fees charged for interbank transfers. My financial institution charges me nothing (and it's in my account shortly after the opening bell on the next business day).

It is not only about the fees, it is also about the exchange rate.

This is why I like Western Union for certain emergency cases and as I posted before you have different options with Western Union now.

For example I choose from Bank account in germany to a bank account in Thailand transfer made via Western Union 1 - 2 banking days, no fees from WU or any of the involved banks.

With a better exchange rate as to use the Creditcard and take it cash out in Thailand.

All done by Westen Union and the good thing is I know in advance clear the amount in THB which would arrive with no hidden fees.

Do you have any idea the WU exchange rate you got? Like you got X-baht per Euro on date X to compare against the Thai bank TT Buying Rate used for incoming wire transfers.

Additionally, there is a 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) funds receiving fee on the Thai bank end...this fee is applied "prior" to posting to your account so it can appear no fee was applied but indeed there was. I'm sorry, I just have a hard time believig WU provides a good exchange rate when there are many, many TV posters over the years talking about how bad the WU exchange rate is.

WU have a calculator on their websites. They will send bank to bank GBP today at 53.569. SCB's T/T rate today is 54.765. So WU are charging about 2%. And of course the receiving fee's mentioned above will presumably apply.

Interestingly if you pay WU by credit/debit card instead of bank transfer the rate hops up to 54.398.....so maybe a good option after all.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Upnotover

[Pib]

WU have a calculator on their websites. They will send bank to bank GBP today at 53.569. SCB's T/T rate today is 54.765. So WU are charging about 2%. And of course the receiving fee's mentioned above will presumably apply.

Interestingly if you pay WU by credit/debit card instead of bank transfer the rate hops up to 54.398.....so maybe a good option after all.

It wouldn't surprise payment with a "credit" card would result in a cash advance fee from the credit card of several percent. So, a debit card would probably be a less expensive way to go.

[Pib]

From playing with the WU calculator method of payment offerred and fees varies by sending country. As hawker9000 said he was funding the transfer from his German bank account I'm assuming he using the Western Union Germany service. In that case, the method of payment offerred is bank account or credit card and there is no fee for either method on the Western Union end. However, the exchange rate they provide for funded by bank account or credit card is 42.84 baht/Euro at the time of this post. Looking at the Bangkok Bank "TT Buying Rate" used for incoming transfers their rate is 43.79 baht/Euro. This means the WU exchange rate is approx 2.2% lower than Bangkok Bank's rate. The 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) receiving fee would apply to either an incoming WU transfer or transfer from a foreign bank so that fee is a wash/applies to either sending method.

Seems the WU exchange rate seems to be pretty much inline with another service we hear people talking about sometimes--PayPal. And just as a person can usually escape direct/upfront fees when using PayPal to send funds to another country, the PayPal exchange rate is usually around 2 to 2.5% lower than the Thai bank TT Buying Rate....and of course that Thai bank receiving fee still applies. The lower exchange rate is where WU and PayPal make their money.

[hawker9000]

From playing with the WU calculator method of payment offerred and fees varies by sending country. As hawker9000 said he was funding the transfer from his German bank account I'm assuming he using the Western Union Germany service. In that case, the method of payment offerred is bank account or credit card and there is no fee for either method on the Western Union end. However, the exchange rate they provide for funded by bank account or credit card is 42.84 baht/Euro at the time of this post. Looking at the Bangkok Bank "TT Buying Rate" used for incoming transfers their rate is 43.79 baht/Euro. This means the WU exchange rate is approx 2.2% lower than Bangkok Bank's rate. The 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) receiving fee would apply to either an incoming WU transfer or transfer from a foreign bank so that fee is a wash/applies to either sending method.

Seems the WU exchange rate seems to be pretty much inline with another service we hear people talking about sometimes--PayPal. And just as a person can usually escape direct/upfront fees when using PayPal to send funds to another country, the PayPal exchange rate is usually around 2 to 2.5% lower than the Thai bank TT Buying Rate....and of course that Thai bank receiving fee still applies. The lower exchange rate is where WU and PayPal make their money.

No, not using German bank at all. Fidelity (large U.S. brokerage).

[Pib]

From playing with the WU calculator method of payment offerred and fees varies by sending country. As hawker9000 said he was funding the transfer from his German bank account I'm assuming he using the Western Union Germany service. In that case, the method of payment offerred is bank account or credit card and there is no fee for either method on the Western Union end. However, the exchange rate they provide for funded by bank account or credit card is 42.84 baht/Euro at the time of this post. Looking at the Bangkok Bank "TT Buying Rate" used for incoming transfers their rate is 43.79 baht/Euro. This means the WU exchange rate is approx 2.2% lower than Bangkok Bank's rate. The 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) receiving fee would apply to either an incoming WU transfer or transfer from a foreign bank so that fee is a wash/applies to either sending method.

Seems the WU exchange rate seems to be pretty much inline with another service we hear people talking about sometimes--PayPal. And just as a person can usually escape direct/upfront fees when using PayPal to send funds to another country, the PayPal exchange rate is usually around 2 to 2.5% lower than the Thai bank TT Buying Rate....and of course that Thai bank receiving fee still applies. The lower exchange rate is where WU and PayPal make their money.

No, not using German bank at all. Fidelity (large U.S. brokerage).

My bad...I shouldn't have said "As hawker9000 said..." I should have said "As German Viking said in his post #60..." where he said he had used WU and funded it from his German bank account.

Also in German Viking's post #60 where he said the WU rate was better than credit card rates. Well, since the WU rate is a little over 2% worst than Thai bank TT Buying Rates and since Visa/Mastercard card exchange rates are very close to the TT Buying Rate "before any card-issuing bank fees are applied", I expect German Viking may have a card that applies a foreign transaction fee of several percent (not uncommon) which makes the rate he gets with his card the same or worst than the WU rate which makes the WU rate look OK to him. But for emergency purposes as German Viking said, a couple percent loss in exchange rate/fees is OK....I would do the same. Urgency of need and transfer methods available to a person all determine which transfer method he will use...and some are better/faster/cheaper than others.....and there are new transfer options always appearing....always good to check them out.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Pib

[hawker9000]

Some credit card issuers are jumping on the no-transaction-fee bandwagon. Capital One has been that way for some time, but they're not the only game in town anymore.

[Pib]

Some credit card issuers are jumping on the no-transaction-fee bandwagon. Capital One has been that way for some time, but they're not the only game in town anymore.

Yeap, I have a couple of no foreign transaction fee credit cards...a couple from CapOne and one from the Pentagon Federal Credit Union. The wife and I use the CapOne cards almost daily in Thailand (she uses the CapOne Mastercard and I use the Capone Visa)...they both pay 1.5% cash back...and of course reduce a person's need to bring cash into Thailand. The PFCU Visa credit card is also a "no cash advance fee" credit card which I use to do counter withdrawals at the bank to avoid the Bt150-180 ATM fee on foreign cards...can get up to $2000/day...I.then I log onto my PFCU online account and pay the cash advance in full same day to avoid any interest charge.

[German Viking]

Not always true about fees charged for interbank transfers. My financial institution charges me nothing (and it's in my account shortly after the opening bell on the next business day).

It is not only about the fees, it is also about the exchange rate.

This is why I like Western Union for certain emergency cases and as I posted before you have different options with Western Union now.

For example I choose from Bank account in germany to a bank account in Thailand transfer made via Western Union 1 - 2 banking days, no fees from WU or any of the involved banks.

With a better exchange rate as to use the Creditcard and take it cash out in Thailand.

All done by Westen Union and the good thing is I know in advance clear the amount in THB which would arrive with no hidden fees.

Do you have any idea the WU exchange rate you got? Like you got X-baht per Euro on date X to compare against the Thai bank TT Buying Rate used for incoming wire transfers.

Additionally, there is a 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) funds receiving fee on the Thai bank end...this fee is applied "prior" to posting to your account so it can appear no fee was applied but indeed there was. I'm sorry, I just have a hard time believig WU provides a good exchange rate when there are many, many TV posters over the years talking about how bad the WU exchange rate is.

WU have a calculator on their websites. They will send bank to bank GBP today at 53.569. SCB's T/T rate today is 54.765. So WU are charging about 2%. And of course the receiving fee's mentioned above will presumably apply.

Interestingly if you pay WU by credit/debit card instead of bank transfer the rate hops up to 54.398.....so maybe a good option after all.

WU transfer about 1 week ago German Account to receiving Bangkok Bank in Phuket time: 2 Bank days transfer made by Western Union.

Until now no extra fee appeared from Bangkok Bank or my German Bank anyway if there will appears any extra bank fee I will kick WU in the arse and I will getting my money back and WU will have a bad reputation.

Caused I will publish this case, caused I'm fed up of any cheaters and If I can, then I will all of them nail onto the wall. no Fee

I will give examples of these possible transfers on rates from today, but only Euro -THB:

WU like explained above: 1000 Euro = 42853,62 THB no fee

https://www.westernunion.de/WUCOMWEB/priceItResultsHome.do?method=save&nextSecurePage=Y

With my Visa Card same amount DKB Bank german online bank take out on a ATM in Phuket 43996,65 THB no extra fee from any bank.

http://www.visaeurope.com/en/cardholders/exchange_rates.aspx

SCB TT 43891,25 THB - fee

Bangkok Bank TT 43877,50 THB - fee

Simple said my Visa Card having the best exchange rate and no fees at all.

WU I use only for emergency cases.

[German Viking]

Some credit card issuers are jumping on the no-transaction-fee bandwagon. Capital One has been that way for some time, but they're not the only game in town anymore.

Yeap, I have a couple of no foreign transaction fee credit cards...a couple from CapOne and one from the Pentagon Federal Credit Union. The wife and I use the CapOne cards almost daily in Thailand (she uses the CapOne Mastercard and I use the Capone Visa)...they both pay 1.5% cash back...and of course reduce a person's need to bring cash into Thailand. The PFCU Visa credit card is also a "no cash advance fee" credit card which I use to do counter withdrawals at the bank to avoid the Bt150-180 ATM fee on foreign cards...can get up to $2000/day...I.then I log onto my PFCU online account and pay the cash advance in full same day to avoid any interest charge.

I think for some of your credit cards you pay annual fees.

My Visa Card from Deutsche Kredit Bank (DKB) no annual fee.

In top a lot of benefits while use the card for pay in restaurants up to 10% less bill into germany.

[German Viking]

From playing with the WU calculator method of payment offerred and fees varies by sending country. As hawker9000 said he was funding the transfer from his German bank account I'm assuming he using the Western Union Germany service. In that case, the method of payment offerred is bank account or credit card and there is no fee for either method on the Western Union end. However, the exchange rate they provide for funded by bank account or credit card is 42.84 baht/Euro at the time of this post. Looking at the Bangkok Bank "TT Buying Rate" used for incoming transfers their rate is 43.79 baht/Euro. This means the WU exchange rate is approx 2.2% lower than Bangkok Bank's rate. The 0.25% (Bt200 min, Bt500 max) receiving fee would apply to either an incoming WU transfer or transfer from a foreign bank so that fee is a wash/applies to either sending method.

Seems the WU exchange rate seems to be pretty much inline with another service we hear people talking about sometimes--PayPal. And just as a person can usually escape direct/upfront fees when using PayPal to send funds to another country, the PayPal exchange rate is usually around 2 to 2.5% lower than the Thai bank TT Buying Rate....and of course that Thai bank receiving fee still applies. The lower exchange rate is where WU and PayPal make their money.

No, not using German bank at all. Fidelity (large U.S. brokerage).

My bad...I shouldn't have said "As hawker9000 said..." I should have said "As German Viking said in his post #60..." where he said he had used WU and funded it from his German bank account.

Also in German Viking's post #60 where he said the WU rate was better than credit card rates. Well, since the WU rate is a little over 2% worst than Thai bank TT Buying Rates and since Visa/Mastercard card exchange rates are very close to the TT Buying Rate "before any card-issuing bank fees are applied", I expect German Viking may have a card that applies a foreign transaction fee of several percent (not uncommon) which makes the rate he gets with his card the same or worst than the WU rate which makes the WU rate look OK to him. But for emergency purposes as German Viking said, a couple percent loss in exchange rate/fees is OK....I would do the same. Urgency of need and transfer methods available to a person all determine which transfer method he will use...and some are better/faster/cheaper than others.....and there are new transfer options always appearing....always good to check them out.

Hi Pib, read my post from today, WU I use only in the case of emergency, when my Visa Card don't works on the ATM.

In the case of emergency is the WU option I has displayed several times already the best solution.

[Pib]

Some credit card issuers are jumping on the no-transaction-fee bandwagon. Capital One has been that way for some time, but they're not the only game in town anymore.

Yeap, I have a couple of no foreign transaction fee credit cards...a couple from CapOne and one from the Pentagon Federal Credit Union. The wife and I use the CapOne cards almost daily in Thailand (she uses the CapOne Mastercard and I use the Capone Visa)...they both pay 1.5% cash back...and of course reduce a person's need to bring cash into Thailand. The PFCU Visa credit card is also a "no cash advance fee" credit card which I use to do counter withdrawals at the bank to avoid the Bt150-180 ATM fee on foreign cards...can get up to $2000/day...I.then I log onto my PFCU online account and pay the cash advance in full same day to avoid any interest charge.

I think for some of your credit cards you pay annual fees.

My Visa Card from Deutsche Kredit Bank (DKB) no annual fee.

In top a lot of benefits while use the card for pay in restaurants up to 10% less bill into germany.

Ditto for me...no annual fees on the credit cards I have. But many credit cards in the U.S. do come with annual fees...just as many credit cards do not.

[German Viking]

Some credit card issuers are jumping on the no-transaction-fee bandwagon. Capital One has been that way for some time, but they're not the only game in town anymore.

Yeap, I have a couple of no foreign transaction fee credit cards...a couple from CapOne and one from the Pentagon Federal Credit Union. The wife and I use the CapOne cards almost daily in Thailand (she uses the CapOne Mastercard and I use the Capone Visa)...they both pay 1.5% cash back...and of course reduce a person's need to bring cash into Thailand. The PFCU Visa credit card is also a "no cash advance fee" credit card which I use to do counter withdrawals at the bank to avoid the Bt150-180 ATM fee on foreign cards...can get up to $2000/day...I.then I log onto my PFCU online account and pay the cash advance in full same day to avoid any interest charge.

I think for some of your credit cards you pay annual fees.

My Visa Card from Deutsche Kredit Bank (DKB) no annual fee.

In top a lot of benefits while use the card for pay in restaurants up to 10% less bill into germany.

Ditto for me...no annual fees on the credit cards I have. But many credit cards in the U.S. do come with annual fees...just as many credit cards do not.

It is also important in the case you use Credit Card and go in minus, what is your interest rate!!??

My standard german Credit Cards about 15% annual interest, double Visa/Master CC 45 Euro annual fee.

My norwegian friend Visa CC about 25% annual interest, + 600 NOK annual fee

My german VISA CC from DKB about 7,9% interest, and no annual fee

[Pib]

Interest rate around 9.99% on the low end...up to around 20% on the high end on most U.S. credit cards--all depends on what card you get. But I'm fortunate in being able to pay my monthly credit card balance in full each month which prevents any interest charges on purchases. Gosh, I haven't paid interest on a credit card for decades...yes, I consider myself fortunate.

[German Viking]

Interest rate around 9.99% on the low end...up to around 20% on the high end on most U.S. credit cards--all depends on what card you get. But I'm fortunate in being able to pay my monthly credit card balance in full each month which prevents any interest charges on purchases. Gosh, I haven't paid interest on a credit card for decades...yes, I consider myself fortunate.

You are a lucky guy enjoy your life.

Carpe diem

[MrWorldwide]

I can only offer my own experience with CBA in Oz and Krungthai here in Thailand. I have an FCD account which makes it easy to give you the numbers in AUD.

SWIFT transfers, whether its $500 or 10K, cost $22 from the CBA end and $6.56 at the Krungthai end - the latter charge is presumably their payment to the intermediary bank they use for SWIFT transfers. The $22 is added to the amount to be transferred when my account is debited and the $6.56 subtracted from the amount finally deposited in my FCD account. I have no idea how this compares to SWIFT charges elsewhere, but given that I wont need to do this every month I'm happy. I did briefly consider OzForex but given that I want to keep the bulk of my money in Australian dollars this was all I needed. Wouldnt be quite so handy if I was transferring 2k AUD per month but I could live with it.

[hawker9000]

I can only offer my own experience with CBA in Oz and Krungthai here in Thailand. I have an FCD account which makes it easy to give you the numbers in AUD.

SWIFT transfers, whether its $500 or 10K, cost $22 from the CBA end and $6.56 at the Krungthai end - the latter charge is presumably their payment to the intermediary bank they use for SWIFT transfers. The $22 is added to the amount to be transferred when my account is debited and the $6.56 subtracted from the amount finally deposited in my FCD account. I have no idea how this compares to SWIFT charges elsewhere, but given that I wont need to do this every month I'm happy. I did briefly consider OzForex but given that I want to keep the bulk of my money in Australian dollars this was all I needed. Wouldnt be quite so handy if I was transferring 2k AUD per month but I could live with it.

Yours is kind of a special case since you're keeping everything in AUD. Most of us (I think) making these transfers are making them to baht accounts in Thailand. One can't really compare these data points without knowing what rate you end up paying on the forex. A more competitive exchange rate could easily make up for fees, and vice-versa. But the intermediary fee & wire transfer fee you're citing sound about par for the course (except that the intermediary fee is usually a [small] percentage while the WT fee is usually fixed).

[MrWorldwide]

I can only offer my own experience with CBA in Oz and Krungthai here in Thailand. I have an FCD account which makes it easy to give you the numbers in AUD.

SWIFT transfers, whether its $500 or 10K, cost $22 from the CBA end and $6.56 at the Krungthai end - the latter charge is presumably their payment to the intermediary bank they use for SWIFT transfers. The $22 is added to the amount to be transferred when my account is debited and the $6.56 subtracted from the amount finally deposited in my FCD account. I have no idea how this compares to SWIFT charges elsewhere, but given that I wont need to do this every month I'm happy. I did briefly consider OzForex but given that I want to keep the bulk of my money in Australian dollars this was all I needed. Wouldnt be quite so handy if I was transferring 2k AUD per month but I could live with it.

Yours is kind of a special case since you're keeping everything in AUD. Most of us (I think) making these transfers are making them to baht accounts in Thailand. One can't really compare these data points without knowing what rate you end up paying on the forex. A more competitive exchange rate could easily make up for fees, and vice-versa. But the intermediary fee & wire transfer fee you're citing sound about par for the course (except that the intermediary fee is usually a [small] percentage while the WT fee is usually fixed).

As I mentioned in the other thread, KT will charge me .05% to transfer funds from my FCD account into my THB savings account - that's $5 for every 1000AUD and I'll get their conversion rate on the day not the completely underwhelming rate my Australian bank offers on a 'THB' transfer. More importantly for me, if and when I get my visa I can elect to transfer some of the deposit back to my Australian account without incurring any conversion costs - not scaremongering, just giving myself options and that's a discussion best left for another thread.