Hey everyone,
I have an account with the First Commercial Bank in Taipei and I want to wire my money to my account back in my country (Belgium). Does anyone know if this is possible and what the fee is? Would it be cheaper to exchange it to euros back home?
Thanks in advance for your help!
Nienke
I’m not familiar with First Commercial Bank but some of these questions you will need to go into the bank and ask. Even in more industrial parts of New Taipei city banks usually will have at least one person with English good enough to answer those questions. (Looking at their website I think you will have no problems going into your branch and getting these questions answered)
My experience is really bank dependent (I only have accounts with Bank of Taiwan and Mega and I’m dealing 99% of the time in US dollars).
Foreign wire transfers should only cost NT150-200. However your bank might be different. Bank of Taiwan does have a service where you can pay USD18 extra and they will make sure that the full amount you wired is deposited into your account. Remember from some banks in Taiwan to smaller banks in the USA or Belgium the wire will go through 2-3 intermediary banks before hitting your bank. Each of those banks will skim off their own fees. You can never know in advance what those fees will be.
Of course this excludes your own banking incoming foreign wire transfer fee. In the USA I have to pay 30USD I think.
In terms of where to exchange the money, I believe that in 99% of cases you should be getting the exchange rate here in Taiwan if NT dollars is any part of the transaction. Unless you are some VIP at your Belgium bank and transferring a very large sum, I highly doubt your Belgium bank will give you an attractive rate for NT dollars to Euros…not to mention they will stick you with yet another fee.
You can use your NT dollar account to get a fixed rate for Euros that they will transfer for you (but double check that your bank will do this). They may or may not charge you a small fee for this. By small it should be NT 50-100. Something very reasonable compared to normal Western bank price/fee gouging.