Has anyone been able to negotiate free cross-bank transfers for their business bank account in Taiwan? I’m using 華南. 15NT every transfer, 100 transfers a month to various agencies for payroll and vendors and it adds up to 1.5k in fees a month. I’m used to paying no fees for transferring money between banks in other parts of the world.
On another note, has someone found a way to automate payroll so you don’t have to spend so much time each month paying the various payroll agencies? Something like Gusto in the US. I’m not sure what I’d do if I have to leave the country for a few months.
I asked a few of my personal non business banks if they would waive some transfer fees and they said they only do it if the company you work for has a special agreement as such. So for me I just opened up all the main banks that have ATM’s everywhere to avoid fees (post office, Cathay, Taishin, China trust) which covered most ATM’s.
HSBC is good in that the advance account waives 30 transfer fees a month and the premier I think does 50 or 100 free??. But of course I think advance requires 1M NT in the account and premier is 3M or they add account fees for holding the account.
You could ask your bank and their willingness may depend on how much business you have with them and if they are afraid to lose it or not.
I have HSBC a premier personal account, but they don’t open business accounts except for publicly listed companies. I tried negotiating with 華南 for commission free transfers and they said they didn’t know anything about that. Maybe I need to try a different bank.
Fubon business account - they wanted 1 year company history, employees required to open bank accounts at their branch, companies need to take out a loan, and they will give 99 free transfers a month
I stuck with HSBC premier (personal banking). I just take out cash from the ATM from my business bank, and deposit it at the ATM with HSBC personal, then issue all the payments from HSBC, up to 50 free transfers a month.
I think Taiwan cooperative bank gives 1 free transfer a day for business accounts, but HSBC worked for me.
On another note, E Sun business banking has been quite good with international wires.
I got along well with two clerks there, and one of them handles all the incoming wires. They both recognize and say hi to me each time I visit the bank. I have not noticed any remittance wire fees for my incoming international wires. Not sure if they are running a promo or I’m just lucky.
Their online portal lets you lock in forex rates anytime during a day to use the same day. Very useful for today when the rates dropped from 27.93 to 27.82 by end of day. And for the rest of this year they have a promo running where online banking forex conversion spread is only about half of regular spread. For example regular spread might be 27.83-27.93 but they’ll offer 27.865-27.895.
E sun business bank has some strict verifications though, they had to visit my workplace, checkout my product and employees at work, take pictures, and they reject most investing or crypto products for business banking (I think due to their fine a few years back).