In another topic I asked about being able to do International Wire Transfers from a US bank over the Internet. After some searches with Google I was able to find out that while several banks offer International Wire Transfers online for business accounts, being able to do this with a personal account is not very common for US banks.
However, I was able to find that Citibank offers the ability to do International Wire Transfers online with personal accounts. The service fee is also lower than doing it through a branch teller: US$30. They also offer a service called Citibank Global Transfers which allows one to do international transfers from one Citibank account to another for only US$10 however Taiwan is not one of the countries they offer this service for currently. Also the limit is somewhat low; as low as US$3000 depending on the account type.
Normally Citibank is not a very good choice because they offer fairly piss-poor interest rates and also tend to charge a lot in fees. However they also are currently offering a special E-Savings package which includes a savings account currently earning 5.00%APY and includes a checking account for no monthly fees (‘limited time offer’ on the no monthly fees thing). This is similar to the other ‘online-only savings’ accounts like ING Direct, etc. except that it includes a checking account as well.
To qualify for this account you must have a US Mailing Address, social security number, and state ID/Driver’s license. To apply or get more details, go to Citibank US Web Site and click on ‘e-savings’ under the ‘Banking’ category.
If anyone else has other leads for this service, please follow up via this topic.
According to Bank of America customer service, you should be able to do an international wire transfer from a US account to a bank account you have here in Taiwan, via Bank of America’s online banking site. It seems all you need to have is the routing number and bank account number from your Taiwanese bank.
I haven’t actually done this to see if it works, because as I mentioned in my other thread, I have my account number and some “other” number that consists of digits and characters that seems to indicate the bank name and branch number of my bank here. The Bank of America wire transfer form is asking for a 9-digit routing number, so I still need to figure out what that is for my bank here.
That sounds like a domestic wire transfer or ACH transfer, because an ACH routing number is 9 digits long. For international you usually need the IBAN (Europe) or SWIFT (Elsewhere, incl Taiwan) number for the bank, bank name, account number and account name. They also usually want additional info such as branch name and address. When I checked BofA’s web site I couldn’t find info on doing international wire transfers on the web.
I can’t find any info about doing an international transfer on their online banking site either. I’m thinking that the woman I was talking about just didn’t know what she was talking about. She knew that I had the SWIFT number for the bank, but was telling me I needed to call them to find out the routing number, even though it appears they wouldn’t have one.