ATM withdrawal vs Bank Transfer

Have just moved to Taiwan from NZ. Is withdrawing from the local ATM using my NZ debit card the cheapest option? I understand I can only do up to NTD 20k per withdrawal with a fee of NTD 100 each time. I’m ok with doing this over the next few months as and when I need to. Or is doing a one-off international bank transfer a better option for amounts around NTD 200k?

Transfer wise doesn’t seem to work for this particular exchange.

I’ve pretty much stuck with ATM withdrawals since I’ve lived here. The account’s bank lets me do $30k/day so if I need more than that I just do it over multiple days from multiple accounts. Many ATMs do not charge a $100 fee but it seems more are adding this recently. I know at least Cathay and Cooperative ATMs are free for international withdrawals.

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It really depends on the fees charged by your card-issuing bank in NZ (including any exchange rate loading), so you’d need to check that. I use ATM withdrawals a lot for getting money from the UK, but those are free of fees with the MasterCard rate so it’s pretty competitive. (I understand that Australian/NZ banks can be quite pricy for international withdrawals, if I remember correctly.)

I’ve never paid anything on the Taiwan side for international ATM withdrawals. Not all banks charge the NT$100 fee, so you should be able to avoid that (I usually use the Cathay ATMs, which are free).

You should always avoid DCC, of course - let your home bank rather than the ATM bank do the currency conversion. (I think that’s never to your advantage, AFAIK.)

Hard to believe. They are probably screwing you over in the exchange rates.

ATM Cash withdrawals can also be limited by the capacity of the machine, while 100K could be possible, a few withdrawals like that would soon drain the machine and require the Security people to replenish it.

When withdrawing Cash at a foreign ATM, the rate is that used by Visa or Mastercard + a fee imposed by the owner of the ATM + a fee that may be imposed by the Bank that holds your account.

Like @Andrew I use a Cathay Bank ATM to get cash from my Australian Account every now and then. Cathay charge NIL, the Rate is the MasterCard Rate, and my OZ Bank extorts AUD5 plus 2.5% of the transaction!!

The way to avoid that in normal times for me has been to bring AUD Cash from OZ to Taiwan and get it exchanged here as the rate is much better in Taiwan and no fee (depending on where you change it).

Bank of taiwan charges a couple hundred to transfer. So depends on your country’s fees, but normally transfering is the cheapest on amounts like that. Note the bank will call you and require a reason for the money. Taiwan is strict like that…hence why people still use atm and pay higher fees for fewer questions.

$100nt ATM fee is a huge ripoff, it was Thailand that started that nonsense first years ago and it’s like $10usd now per international transaction over there.

Chinatrust started that bull here and I hoped it wouldn’t spread but yeah it seems like a lot added the fee now

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Yeah, I think it was 180 or 200 baht per withdrawal when I first lived there then increased to 220 baht pretty much across the board. Aeon was a slightly cheaper outlier at 150 baht or so, but not many of those about. Having to pay that every week or two was what switched me to TransferWise. (There’s a couple of banks that refund or used to refund those fees, notably Schwab in the U.S. and formerly Comdirect in Germany, but most don’t.)

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I have a debit card from (Transfer)Wise. You can get cash at ATM up to 7400NTD without fees afterwards it’s like additional 1,75% on the amount.

Don’t forget to check and set appropriate limits for international withdrawals on your card.

Wouldn’t you be better off there just using the normal (Transfer)Wise service to transfer EUR to a multicurrency account here?

Which bank in Australia are you using?

The CBA.