In any case if it’s an amount of less than say 1000 USD (or 500 if the fee is lower), paypal is cheaper and quicker. You can use paypal for larger amounts but since the fees are percentage, it will get higher as the amount goes way up. But it’s a good and safe way of making payment for commercial reasons (such as buying something, as you get paypal protection).
I know there’s western union but I have no idea what the fees are.
So @comfy123 after all the research, which bank do you think is cheapest for international transfers? Still Cathay or did you find any cheaper ones? More important than the flat fee is the conversion rate really, as that’s where you’ll lose most the money
Your upper circle is the non-cash rate. 1 USD costs 30.02 TWD
The lower circle is the cash rate, which is usually worse. 1 USD costs you 30.24 TWD
This thread is about a SWIFT transfer, not cash forex, right? You need to compare with the market rate on google or yahoo, not with the cash rate.
Btw. Megabank sells you USD for 30.00 TWD right now
Exactly right! But I wasn’t sure as my Chinese is still developing
Generally you’d look at the conversion rate that isn’t so terrible for swift transfers. (Because banks have time to delay and wait for a better rate for themselves) The other is for day traders (as it’s an instant trade)
I think if you are “VIP” you get discount on exchange rate. At least I know for sure at Bank of Taiwan. Cathay does give discount but only 3 exchanges during lifetime of the account, which sucks.
That is very, very dangerous. TWD is a restricted currency basically, it can’t be cleared abroad. So the conversion will be made by the correspondent bank of the receiving bank, which is still in Taiwan, and then sent to the destination country if it is the domestic currency of the beneficiary jurisdiction, otherwise then routed through the clearing of the currency in its home jurisdiction and then sent to the receiving bank (it can be as many as even 5 different corresponding banks here, everyone with their own processing fee deducted). I still find Cathay the best for FX so far. I have HSBC, Cathay and CTBC here, whilst HSBC doesn’t make me pay the transfer fees (I am Premier thanks to my still open HK account), the exchange rate is much worse. HSBC HK much better for that, but can’t send and hold TWD abroad as said. CTBC is quite close to Cathay, and they app is much better (and in English, although with limited functions). It seems most of local big banks have also some premier status depending on the amount of funds deposited with them, and these status confer preferential FX rates and a quota of free transactions per month, like gold status with cathay gives 10 free transfers (both domestic and crossborder) per month and 20 free withdrawals at any ATM, platinum increases them to 15 and 30, diamond to 50 and 50. Also some credit cards gives FX preferential rates to account holders at the same bank (can’t remember which one, but I saw one at least).
The gold status is if you have at least 3M TWD in deposits, it seems you need to apply once you reach the threshold. They discount refer to any online transfer, no mention of distinction between domestic and crossborder.