We are in the process of relocating from U.S. to Taiwan. We don’t have any Taiwan-based banks near where we live.
I know there are similar questions being raised in this forum. I know there are many banks in U.S. that do not have retail operations in Taiwan. As of now, we don’t have a bank account in Taiwan.
What is the best way to transfer money from a major U.S. bank to a Taiwan bank?
Is Taiwan’s banking system stable? (vs. U.S. FDIC-insured banks)
A quick thought would be opening up HSBC account in the U.S.
There are HSBC branches in Taiwan, called HSBC (Taiwan).
Taiwan has a similar thing like FDIC, called CDIC. The covered limit is NT$3mn, or roughly U$100,000.
Government banks are all stable, and “too big to fail”, but their service is sometimes lacking. Chunghwa Post also acts as a bank and would never fail.
Decent private banks are Chinatrust, Sinopac, Cathay United, Fubon.
If you don’t mind me asking, what are the government banks in Taiwan? Google search results show: Bank of Taiwan, Taiwan Cooperative Bank and Land Bank of Taiwan. Is that correct?
Nearly every Taiwanese has a bank account in Chunghwa Post. Aside from postal and banking services, it also sells insurance products. It’ll never fail.
Most banks will charge a hefty fee for overseas wire transfers to another bank. I found the best thing to do is to withdraw cash at the ATM from my US bank, and then immediately deposit it into my Taiwanese bank at the same ATM.
Thank you for mentioning about the hefty wire transfer fees.
Did I get it correctly that one can withdraw U.S. dollars at the ATM from a U.S. bank and then once in Taiwan, deposit the U.S. dollars into the same ATM in a Taiwanese bank?
How can I find the same U.S. ATM in a Taiwanese bank? Is there a particular U.S. bank that allows me to do that?
Apologies for being obtuse.
I think it’s feasible if the amount of withdrawal is not large.
I use Wise to transfer US dollars to a US dollar account at CTBC bank. Wise does not support NTD transfers to Taiwan. I was able to negotiate a fee less transfers at CTBC by maintaining a minimum balance.
Wise charge around $15 to do a transfer. Most US banks charged from $20 to $25. Transfer is usually completes overnight. Faster than 3 days it takes to transfer between my US bank to Wise.
You can use your debit card issued by a US bank to withdraw up to NT$20K/withdrawal at most ATMs in Taiwan (some may charge fees). Your daily withdrawal limit is set by your bank in the US. To avoid ATM fees, you can open a Fidelity Cash Management account ($550 daily withdrawal limit, no wire transfer fee), Schwab Investor Checking account ($1K daily withdrawal limit, $25/wire transfer), or Capital One 360 Checking account ($1K daily withdrawal limit, outgoing wire transfer is not supported). The former two also reimburse ATM fees charged by the ATM-owning banks. Most banks in Taiwan don’t charge ATM fees, just avoid ATMs from Taishin and China Trust.
For a large amount, you can do wire transfers, which would be more expensive, and you will be charged fees on both ends (With Fidelity, you will only be charged by the receiving bank), unless you have a HSBC or Citi account both in the US and in Taiwan.
I meant once you are already living in Taiwan, you can withdraw cash from any local ATM using your US debit card, and then without leaving the ATM, insert your Taiwan debit card and deposit that cash you just withdrew.
Personally, I just use my US debit card (where my paychecks go) for most purchases. Most places in Taiwan accept them, if they take cards.
It’s just using an ATM abroad, it’s nothing new or special…
There can also be fees associated with this. I don’t pay any when I do it, but it depends on the person’s bank account whether they’re charged any foreign withdrawal fee or exchange rate loading (or both).
When people are charged fees, which is pretty common, it’s not unusual for the cost of doing multiple ATM withdrawals to exceed the cost of a single larger wire transfer.
Ah, and most importantly: Don’t try to bring lots of cash to Taiwan on the plane without declaring it. The penalty (if caught) will be much higher than any imaginable ATM fee or SWIFT transfer fee…
I thought you could. I seem to remember seeing it in a movie about a casino in Vegas or somewhere, but the memory is fuzzy and it’s never been a concern for me so not sure.
