Does Taiwan participate in IBAN?

I’ve been trying to find out the IBAN to my bank account for the last 3 hours, but to no avail. Is that even a thing here? If not, how can I ensure the money arrives on my account?

I think not. Which country are you transferring from, and I assume you have a multicurrency account here? At least two of the banks I opened an account with (CTBC and Standard Chartered) gave me a little slip of paper with the details needed for international transfers, when I asked about it inside the branch.

When I’ve done international transfers I’ve used the SWIFT/BIC code for the specific branch of the bank I was transferring to (Mega in my case; you can also find those at the link above, presumably the same as on the slips of paper available inside a branch), plus the 11-digit account number printed on the passbook etc. and used inside Taiwan.

This was using (Transfer)Wise, which I recommend if you weren’t already intending to use it (I can PM you a recommendation link if useful, which I believe reduces the already-low transaction fees on your end for the first transaction and gives me some eventual benefit if I recommend enough people, but I recommend it either way).

AFAIK no Asian country uses IBAN. You need to use Swift code + account number.

As others have said, the answer is “no.”

Guy

Another +1. Use SWIFT. No.issues i have had ove many years many accounts and numerous people/companies. Just expect a phone call from a person that sounds like they have more power than.they deserve asking what the money is for and so on. Have your reason, understanding they are essentially dirrecting basic keypad functions towards taxation, illicit money, laundering or other (more questions.to follow). If your money is legit, no.issues. if its legit, over a certain amount and you cant speak mandarin over he phone…you may need to go in person to tell them to politely f**k off :slight_smile: Be sure not to let their absurdly early closing times piss you off further haha.

I haven’t had this problem with my branch of Mega Bank, funnily enough. They called me the first time and I just answered “living expenses” or something, and the last time I missed (or ignored) the call and the transfer went through later that day anyway. I was pleasantly surprised.

Mega has always been good to me too, although they are very careful. Example: the name of the beneficiary (i.e. recipient—in this case, me) of the remitted funds needs to be exactly as it appears on the name of the account to which it is remitted. No skipping middle names or any abbreviation, as I once found out the hard way—the funds were simply sent back.

Guy

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That must have been annoying. Did they actually send the full amount back, or still deduct the intermediary bank fees (twice…!)? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Fees taken out of course. :slight_smile:

Lesson learned! No “A. Spivak.” It had better look like “afterspivak” precisely.

Guy

Great. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

I thought you might have just sent it to “Guy”. And yeah, I’ve always used my full name in the incorrect order it’s printed on my bank account.

. . . and after doing so the funds will be received!

Guy

Taking the chance for two questions on using Wise for transfers to Taiwan. I am a Wise user but haven’t tried it yet.

  1. Since TWD are not available, I guess that you transfer USD into a Taiwanese multicurrency account. Am I right?
  2. How much are the fees involved in your case? I would like to make a comparison with my “manual” method of withdrawing cash with Wise card and depositing it immediately into my local account from the same ATM. I use SGD with a 1.75% fee plus the regular commission on currency exchange. It becomes roughly 2%.

Thanks :v:

See the thread on (Transfer)Wise: Wise (formerly TransferWise)

Should be less than that when transferring larger amounts. Around NT$200-300 for the receiving bank in Taiwan and around US$5 for Wise. And of course a bit of “hidden” fee when exchanging the currency via your bank in Taiwan.

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Yes, that’s correct - USD into a multicurrency account.

I’m guessing Wise will be…comparable, depending on the amount. Wise itself is cheap (see below), but the intermediary bank and receiving bank add on their own fees as well, which might make it more expensive for amounts in the range of typical ATM withdrawals. From what you wrote and the previous fees I’ve seen, it seems like Wise would become cheaper somewhere around the US$800-1000 range, so larger amounts would be better like @qwert_zuiop said.

Copying my answer in the thread posted above:

The last time I transferred a similar amount (US$1500) to myself using TransferWise, the fees at Mega Bank were as follows:

TransferWise fee: US$4.25
Mega Bank incoming transfer fee (including intermediary fee): US$18.16

There’s also the USD to TWD exchange rate loading on the Taiwanese end, but that’s usually pretty negligible at any of the banks I’ve checked.

Cant comment on Wise, never used it. But i do find the fees (obviously depending on currency as well as quantity) are secondary compared to getting essentially taxed (raped) based on exchange rates. If the sums are larger, say a few thousand usd or more, its really worth looking into! Transfers incoming to bank ofbtaiwan are normally a couple hundred nt in fees. But the exporting country is quite a different manner, and even moreso if they use another middleman type setup. Its such a scam that i have for the past decade always quoted customers in TWD and tell them my bank has 200nt fee which i cover. But their sides fees and exchange rates are on them…essentially, dont pay foreign bank corruption fees! Let them complain to their banks in an effort to change things. USD standard is dangerous, especially now. I no longer bother with that racket.

Thanks everyone for the answers. I’ll go with swift/BIC and acc number. Fingers crossed :crossed_fingers:

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