OK, I’ve saved up money while studying so I’ve paid off my provincial student loan but I will still owe about 6-7k on My Canadian National Student Loan. My question is how are people paying these off. I asked at my university and they didn’t know anything. I phoned the student loan service and they didn’t know anything. Apparently there are some banks in Asia that accept NSLS as a payee, like internet banking but they didn’t know which banks where in which country. One idea I was thinking of is getting a visa or mastercard in TW and trying to pay with that over the internet. I read another guy on this site says he wires money to his Canadian bank but he gets nailed by charges on both ends, I would like to avoid that.
I know their are lots of Canadians with student loan debts here, how are you paying them off?
Recently I’ve had some money (cash) sent by registered mail. So far, no problems. I wonder if you couldn’t do the same thing - that is, send it by mail to Canada, and then get someone to deposit it in your account there.
[quote=“silk186”]
I know their are lots of Canadians with student loan debts here, how are you paying them off?[/quote]
And in fact citizens from outside the great white north. Why do so many Canadians write these kinds of questions as though it only affects them?
Anyway for the record, I’ve nearly paid back 20,000 UK of student loans in 5 years. All you need to do is wire money home to your account in the bank. Piece of piss.
You pay taxes in Australia? My sister on welfare says thanks!
Still, net - net, I figure they owe me plenty. The Oz tax department screwed me over at a painful and critical juncture. I’ve never been bothered going back and sorting out their mess, although it would mean them paying me back something. It would be extremely time consuming and the returns just too small.
But as for student loans. While I do think the HECS system in Oz is good, the fact it was free just before I started my degree has always stuck in my craw. Especially as I failed to get in when it was free due to a mix up on the application.
The introduction of SLs, rather than grants happened in the middle of my course so I consider them a breach of contract by Margaret Thatcher’s government. Besides, the terms of my loan stated that I need to earn 2400 pounds’ sterling before I have to repay it. As I spent half my adult life working for a government agency, obviously I didn’t earn a living wage whereby I could afford to pay for my own education, let alone my children’s, the UK can whistle for their fking ‘Student loans’.
The safest, yet most expensive way to make payments back in the world is to wire the money to your account back home and then either write a cheque on that account (if you brought your chequebook with you to Taiwan) or transfer it by internet banking (if you set that up before leaving home). Wires are expensive, though, and I try to avoid them since it really adds up if you have to send money back regularly. The cost of a wire varies greatly depending on which bank you send it from and which bank receives it. If I send money back to the US from HSBC here in HK to my regional bank in the US, it costs me US$25 a pop. I once had to send money the other way. The motherfuckers charged me US$80. The reason for the difference is that HSBC uses its own N. American subsidiary as intermediary, so the cost is fixed, but when my little bank in Redneckistan wires money to HSBC in HK, they use some sort of correspondence banking intermediary that takes an additional cut from the amount transferred. That is quite normal for small banks.
The cheaper way to do it is to send money back by “bank draft,” or by “bank check” as it is usually called in the US. Costs for this vary, but the price of the money exchange and the issuance of the cheque can be much cheaper than a wire. The drawback is that it is not as safe as a wire since there is always the slim chance that the check will end up in the wrong hands, and perhaps deposited somewhere where it shouldn’t. Of course you need to send it by registered mail, and it takes longer than a wire for the funds to clear. For a small bank that is staffed by people who don’t know the difference between Tawain and Thailand, it could take a few weeks for a bank draft to clear.
If you know that you will have to send money back regularly, it would be good to shop around for the banks that wire or draft money for the cheapest rates. Also check what kind of handling charges, if any, that the receiving bank may charge for taking a cheque drawn on a third world bank.
[quote=“silk186”]I’m hoping this is the right section
OK, I’ve saved up money while studying so I’ve paid off my provincial student loan but I will still owe about 6-7k on My Canadian National Student Loan. My question is how are people paying these off. I asked at my university and they didn’t know anything. I phoned the student loan service and they didn’t know anything. Apparently there are some banks in Asia that accept NSLS as a payee, like internet banking but they didn’t know which banks where in which country. One idea I was thinking of is getting a visa or mastercard in TW and trying to pay with that over the internet. I read another guy on this site says he wires money to his Canadian bank but he gets nailed by charges on both ends, I would like to avoid that.
I know their are lots of Canadians with student loan debts here, how are you paying them off?[/quote]
I fail to understand how this could be a difficult or confusing issue.
It’s fairly standard. Yes, even in Taiwan:
Make sure you loan service’s correct name, bank, account number, and address.
Go to your bank in Taiwan, fill out the relevant transfer form.
Money will be paid in electronically within three work days.
That’s how I do it and I never experienced any problems.
I fail to understand how this could be a difficult or confusing issue.
It’s fairly standard. Yes, even in Taiwan:
Make sure you loan service’s correct name, bank, account number, and address.
Go to your bank in Taiwan, fill out the relevant transfer form.
Money will be paid in electronically within three work days.
That’s how I do it and I never experienced any problems.
In the words of Funk 500, “Piece of piss.”[/quote]
Have you been able to wire money from your Taiwan bank directly to loan owner? I’ve never been able to do that even when sending money from HSBC in HK to the US. The student loan company, investment companies and the banks where I’ve had credit cards have always insisted that funds be drawn on US accounts. A complete pain in the ass sometimes.
I fail to understand how this could be a difficult or confusing issue.
It’s fairly standard. Yes, even in Taiwan:
Make sure you loan service’s correct name, bank, account number, and address.
Go to your bank in Taiwan, fill out the relevant transfer form.
Money will be paid in electronically within three work days.
That’s how I do it and I never experienced any problems.
In the words of Funk 500, “Piece of piss.”[/quote]
Have you been able to wire money from your Taiwan bank directly to loan owner? I’ve never been able to do that even when sending money from HSBC in HK to the US. The student loan company, investment companies and the banks where I’ve had credit cards have always insisted that funds be drawn on US accounts. A complete pain in the ass sometimes.[/quote]
If I am not mistaken there are a lot of Canadians here avoiding paying their students loans. What is it 7 years to clear it? I don’t know since in the USA you can’t ever bankrupt your student/ education loans.
Of course I could take advantage of the US credit companies lax system on issuing credit. I could live for years in Taiwan on that money, pay off the loans through the credit cards, claim bankruptcy or then just change my citizenship. Tough luck to Citibank, BOA, Wellsfargo, FirstStar, North Atlantic, Wamu, and the rest bunch of greedy bastards. Pretty hard to get money from a person that is no longer a citizen in their financial realm. Then again I believe in some social responsibility unlike some others (cough).
[quote=“djkonstable”]If I am not mistaken there are a lot of Canadians here avoiding paying their students loans. What is it 7 years to clear it? I don’t know since in the USA you can’t ever bankrupt your student/ education loans.
Of course I could take advantage of the US credit companies lax system on issuing credit. I could live for years in Taiwan on that money, pay off the loans through the credit cards, claim bankruptcy or then just change my citizenship. Tough luck to Citibank, BOA, Wellsfargo, FirstStar, North Atlantic, Wamu, and the rest bunch of greedy bastards. Pretty hard to get money from a person that is no longer a citizen in their financial realm. Then again I believe in some social responsibility unlike some others (cough).[/quote]
the irony of you posting this in a thread about how to pay back a student loan is … delicious.
[quote=“Anubis”]I fail to understand how this could be a difficult or confusing issue.
It’s fairly standard. Yes, even in Taiwan:
Make sure you loan service’s correct name, bank, account number, and address.
Go to your bank in Taiwan, fill out the relevant transfer form.
Money will be paid in electronically within three work days.
That’s how I do it and I never experienced any problems.
In the words of Funk 500, “Piece of piss.”[/quote]
From what I’ve found out by calling the National Student Loan service is that there is a list of banks in Asia that will provide this service, unfortunately they grouped as Asia and not by country. I have thus far been unable to get them to send me this list. The first time I called she told me some but I couldn’t figure out if the bank of china was china or Taiwan bank. E-mailing them have also not gotten the requested information. I will probably call them again tomorrow.
It is good to know that there is at least one bank in Taiwan that can add NSLSC as a payee and that I’m not wasting my time. I wish I could just pay with a Visa, then I could get one in any country.
Anubis- what bank do you use that offers this service?
E-mail seems to be useless, they just send you generic messages.
Then once the credit card company found out, some state attorney general would file fraud charges.
Do any of you student-loan debtors have children in Taiwan? It seems that under current law, children inherit the debts of their parents, unless they specifically renounce the debt within several months (whether or not they are old enough to talk). The recent amnesty you may have read about would not apply to future cases, at least according to what I’ve read. (The lawyers among us may correct me.)
Sure, they aren’t likely to come after you now–but what happens when technology improves a little bit, and Taiwan is just a bit more integrated into other country’s grids?
Since e-mailing proved to be a waste of time I just called them again. The lady I talked to conferenced with her supervisor and he said that the National student loan service doesn’t have any agreements with any banks outside of Canada. Basically that I can only pay my student loan through a Canadian Bank. Naturally she recommended wiring the money to a Canadian account. She also said that I’m the first person she’s had ask about paying while over seas. She initially said that I can pay online or with postdated cheques, assuming that wouldn’t be gone long.
One thing that I’m thinking of is that there is a Taiwanese bank that has an office in Canada and that that bank may have the student loan set up as a payee. Otherwise I will be sending money to my parents by mail to be deposited into my account. I’m really not interested in paying for wire transfers every month.
Monday I will check the CTC Bank of Canada to see if I they offer such a service with there Taiwan branches. Mega International Commercial Bank (Canada) is another Taiwan bank in Canada but it’s located in Ontario so I won’t be able to visit them in person.
There is no special agreement required with a bank to allow them to pay money into an account. Canadian banks will just have common Canadian payment providers listed by name to provide you with a little convenience.
As already mentioned above…
call student loan company
ask for their bank account number, bank name/address and any sorting code / SWIFT code
go to any Taiwanese bank and ask for international transfer
I asked around at a number of Canadian banks, they said that sending an international money order costs around $35-45 and receiving one costs around $20, and there is also the fee for the currency conversion as they only accept CA and US currencies. This seems rather expensive if you do this every month.
A cheaper alternative is sending money through CA/TW post, sending either way seems to cost about $6. I will be looking into this further.
