(Sorry if this was answered somewhere already, in that case my search skills failed :V)
Hey,
On today’s episode of “le me trying to adult”, I"m trying to figure out how to automatically fund my interactive brokers account (so basically, transfer USD to US) every month for some reasonable-ish fee.
I have a yearly-type ARC, which seems to be a problem -
I have a Chunghwa bank account, just went there, and they wouldn’t even let me activate international transfers in the online banking. No way am I standing in line filling out a form every month ><
Do you have any recommendations for banks with online-banking (or apps!) that lets me do international transfers, and in the best case do so automatically every month?
I hear Fubon bank has nice English online banking, but apparently a ~500NTD fee for transferring ~1000USD. Do you know if they have automatic transfers? Is there a cheaper option?
Maybe you should look into how it is to use Wise from Taiwan to the US.
I think @meishijia might have started another thread on this topic too, but I couldn’t find it (didn’t really look, tbh).
I’d probably aim also to decrease the transfer frequency, like doing it every two or three months rather than every month. That would probably make more of a difference than anything else.
try Cathay united, you can receive USD and do the declaration online via app or online banking for the credit and the charge is around USD 6, their USDTWD conversion rate is quite good too. However the app is not in English, but the online banking has a limited English version which works decently.
@Andrew Thanks!
I made a wise account for this very reason only to find it doesn’t work at all they got lotsa currencies, ntd isn’t one of them. (maybe of I had usd in a local account it could work?)
And yeah, I had been thinking about doing the transfer bimonthly to save on fees, which is an option if I have to do it by hand - but interactive brokers only has options to automatically expect money either monthly or quarterly. And quarterly I’d be over 100000 ntd at a time with probably comes with extra problems.
So yeah, I’m actually willing to pay a few hundred ntd a month just to not have to do anything ^^’
You can’t transfer TWD, but I believe you can transfer USD from a multicurrency account (I’ve never tried it - I’ve only sent money in the opposite direction).
One option might be to fund a USD account on Wise then do the monthly transfers to Interactive Brokers from there.
Be careful, I have had problems with Wise. IB does not like them. I am not sure why. I have successfully transferred money, but I have run into problems from time to time. I think at one point they told me they do not allow to transfer from Wise. I still managed to do a transfer after they told me that, but now I try to avoid Wise.
I sent you a private message as well. Most banks don’t have English apps but most have partially English online banking. The trick is getting the right bank with the right person working on the day to help you set it up.
I was quite surprised a few months ago to discover that my default transfer limit in the Mega Bank app was NT$0. When I initially set up the account, they helped register me for online/app banking but apparently hadn’t done that, essentially meaning that the only thing I could do with the app was look at my money. I had to go into the branch again to fix it.
They put my English name in the “Chinese name field” and my English name in the “Chinese name” field on their computer despite my protests. Their reasoning was that Chinese name really means passport name and English name really means freeform text. (wouldn’t their computer say that if it was the case)
So as the names never match, online foreign currency remittances can never be accepted online (I think)
they got lotsa currencies, ntd isn’t one of them. (maybe of I had usd in a local account it could work?)