All banks have this. Though every time you do this they will enquire about the source of funds.
You mean withdraw TWD from your USD account using an ATM? Not possible AFAIK. Modus operandi is to use online banking to convert your foreign currency to TWD and use that to pay for your life here. The local bank clearing system only supports TWD. There are banks that have foreign exchange ATMs, where you can withdraw USD from your TWD account (Bank of Taiwan has a few, for example). I don’t think you can withdraw USD directly from your USD account using an ATM.
Domestic wires are TWD only, unlike Hong Kong, you can’t transfer USD from Taiwan bank A to Taiwan bank B. For international wires, you need to go to the bank in person. It should be no problem to send your USD abroad.
Mega and HSBC. I believe many ppl use E.Sun bank, because of their Paypal link.
“mei banfa” translates to “I could do it, but it is too much work for too little reward”
I actually went to four different different banks yesterday to do just this. They all had the facility, but some have more charges than others. I went with Taishin who had the lowest fees. The fees are about half a percent with them for RMB. The others were all over 1%. They dont charge you to deposit foreign currency, but hit you with the fee when you withdraw.
Your answer is really exhaustive I just want to clarify one point. I don’t want to withdraw USD from the atm. I mean i don’t want to withdraw USD notes. I want to keep the balance in the bank in USD, use my debit card and have the Ntd notes out of the atm machine. Meanwhile the balance that gets deducted is the USD in my bank with the correct conversion rate. Does this exist?
Anyway the above point is secondary. My main concern is to send USD to another USD account, domestic or abroad without going to the bank!
I have not encountered a bank that supports this. There also seem to be technical/legal reasons for this too, the TWD and the Foreign currency accounts are actually two separate accounts with two different numbers. The debit card is issued for the TWD account only, in my experience.
Domestic wires in USD are 100% not possible, online or offline. If you find a bank that allows you to send international wires via online banking, please let me know. AFAIK you need to at least go to the bank to have them set up the recipient, after which you can do the transfer online as often as you wish. Mega works like this, for example.
If you would like to have a more international and online friendly banking experience and are not in Taiwan all the time, you might need to look at HK or Singapore.
Yes, I went to four banks yesterday and they all had it, with varying fees. You keep it on deposit in foreign currency and then they hit you a fee to change it to local and withdraw. If you withdraw it in foreign they still hit you with the fee. About 0.5% in Taishin for RMB, I presume there USD charges are similar.
Look about one bank that supports USD to USD transfers, domestic and abroad is BDS. I went there this morning and for what I understood they have it. I still don’t have the account they take some days anyway to send me the internet banking. I’ll post here my experience.
With citibank you cannot do it online. You have to go there. It cost also 600nt. You can save some payees accounts and you can do the operation over the phone but not online
Bank of Taiwan allows you to do international USD transfers online, however you need to register the receiving bank account information at the bank first. So if you transfer to the same accounts regularly, this might work.
In general the banking system here hasn’t arrived in the 21st century yet. Everything needs to be printed and stamped by four different people. I suspect that the same happens with online banking: someone sees your transaction, prints it, and four people stamp it before you see the confirmation on your screen. Maybe there’s even a person sitting inside the ATM to print your request and stamp it before pushing out the bills.
I mean between different Taiwanese banks. You can transfer USD to a different foreign currency account at the same bank, since it is just a bookkeeping exercise, not a real transfer.
And technically you can send USD to a different Taiwanese bank, using an international wire (SWIFT). Just not as a domestic transfer.
No, the debit card will be associated with your NTD account. You will have to make sure you convert USD to TWD either online or at the bank and keep them in the TWD account before being able to withdraw.
I don’t care at all to withdraw in foreigner currency AT the bank! If I’m in taiwan I want TWD that’s it, for me it’s relevant to have TWD from the USD account since I don’t want to convert them all the times online. But this seems impossible for everyone here.
I have than another question. Which one is the bank that has the lowest cost and the best exchange rate when I withdraw from abroad (in the abroad currency)?
I think somebody once mentioned that Citi can do that but I personally don’t know. You can probably try to negotiate it… But if they usually don’t do it for personal accounts you would need some serious guanxi to make it happen. Corporate accounts may be a different matter.
If you really have to have the ability to send any amount internationally online the solution imho is to use either hsbc premium or it’s citi equivalent (as mentioned above). Open such an account in HK or Singapore, keep your USD there for international transfers, open a matching account in Taiwan with the offshore account as your main account and transfer any money you need between these accounts instantly. This would solve the problem but I’m not sure if you qualify.
But if they usually don’t do it for personal accounts you would need some serious guanxi to make it happen. Corporate accounts may be a different matter.