Banking Taiwan->USA

This is what I am trying to figure out. I have a Chase, Wells Fargo, and US Bank in the US. I can transfer between them seamlessly and instantaneously here. I am trying to figure out what bank(s) and how to transfer to them from Taiwan.

See if there are still banks that have presence in Taiwan and US. When I first moved here, Citi fit that category. So I was able to open a citi in US and a citi in TW and link the 2. I can transfer money back and forth without charge overnight. Unfortunately, unless you had this all setup already, you can no longer do it since citi is moving out of Taiwan and they are not allowing you to link the accounts anymore.

HSBC seems to allow you to do it.

Bank In Multiple Countries Or Regions - HSBC International

The other thing to note is, aside the exchange rate that may or may not be in your favor, most banks will also charge a handling fee for handling USD. Meaning if I want to deposit USD cash into my Taiwan Citi account, they will charge .0035%. They would also charge you a fee if you wanted to withdraw the USD cash if you went inside to a teller. But if you use the ATM, you can withdraw USD without any fees. Not sure if this is true for other banks.

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Banks in Taiwan do transfers in foreign currency all the time. Any bank will do. They all use the same Bank of Taiwan exchange rates. Exchanges rates in Taiwan banks are very competitive. Don’t need to over think sending funds to USA. A simply TT is the way to go. Your wife as a Taiwan citizen could just use her Taiwan online banking and send the $$$ to your US account so no need to go to a bank branch. I live in the wilderness my bank is 90 minutes away. We do banking online. I also have accounts overseas, sometimes funds come in sometimes they go out.

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Not true. My last exchange, bank of taiwan offered me 30.13. Cathay bank offered me 30.49.

Could be as rates do change during the day.

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Could be. There was 2 minutes between the 2 queries.

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there are very slight differences among the banks on the FX rate, but are mostly minimal tbh, and intra-day fluctuations show they use a live rate, which is very good.

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It’s all relative. If you’re not exchanging a lot, then it probably doesn’t matter. If your exchanging 10,000. Then it might matter a little more. At the rate difference I was quoted, the difference would have been 3600 ntd. To some people that’s may not be worth the effort.

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The cheapest way to send money from TW to the US is send it in the form of a USD check via registered mail. Takes about 5 to 7 days.

Not it not the cheapest way. You have to pay for the check. And apart from being slow and inconvenient on the receiving end the bank also charges fees which are often more than a TT fee. Checks are also at risk of theft in the mail a TT is not.

Checks also need several weeks to clear, so there’s that too.

Most banks in Taiwan charge a cable fee of at least NT$300 plus 0.05% of the transaction amount (minimum: NT$100-NT$400, maximum: NT$800) per international wire. Then there might be an intermediary bank fee, and an incoming wire fee

If you open HSBC Premier accounts in the US and in Taiwan, you can get unlimited free transfers between your accounts, however you will have to maintain a monthly balance of $75,000 or a direct deposit of $6,000/mo. from a 3rd party, otherwise they will charge a $50 monthly maintenance fee.

Visa Direct (up to $2500) and Western Union (up to NT$50,000) might be an option if the transfer amount is small.

Richart is a flat 5usd for an online international transfer and you don’t need to nominate the account…

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