So I have to internationally transfer to them and then they send to my UK account? What’s the benefit? I’d still have fees on Taiwan bank side
My U.K. bank I can send as direct transfer no fees. Does your Taiwan bank?
You have a link to the OFX site read what they say., I made a suggestion to use, I’m not their sales guy.
Plus I still think best suggestion is cheque photos through your banking app, I have 2 U.K. accounts that do that. @acedubs
So guys, I worked out how much it would cost to send from my bank in Taiwan (Cathay) to my bank in the UK (Barclays).
On the Taiwan side, Cathay charges $200 for international transfers if you send from the money in your account, or $400 if you send from cash not deposited (if I understand their site correctly).
On the UK side, Barclays charges £6 fee for incoming international transfers.
So in total it costs NT$200 + GB£6 to send from Taiwan to the UK. If you send £2000 at a time, that’s only a 0.5% fee, which is really good.
Of course there are exchange rates to deal with on the Taiwan side, but if I remember correctly, they are quite good here, is that right?
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In the end I went to Hua Nan because it was closer to my office, even though that meant paying $200 more in fees.
I wanted to send NT$85,400.
NT$400 was deducted for transfer fee.
NT$85,000 > £2263.41 was sent to the UK calculated by the bank’s exchange rate.
Rate at the time was NT$85,400 > £2287.43 according to Google.
So I lost £24.02 on the Taiwan side (bad exchange rate + fees)
On the UK side, £6 fee will be deducted.
In total I will end up with £2,257.41, which means I lost £30.02, or 1.31% on a transfer of NT$85,400.
Biggest cost is definitely the exchange rate losses, so I’ll be on the lookout for the bank with the best exchange rates.
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That’s not necessarily “bad” though - there will always be some deviation from Google. I think the rates offered by most Taiwanese banks are pretty reasonable, and they probably don’t vary too much.
You should also wait to see how much arrives in your bank account too - there may well be intermediary bank fees.
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Just fyi, the bank likely trades your TWD for USD first before they exchange those to GBP. USDTWD is the only really liquid currency pair on the island. Would it be cheaper to send USD to your bank in the UK?
400 for a bank that you don’t have an account with? That is cheap. China Trust charge more than that I remember. They give me a free transfer once a year now so i can’t remember exactly.
Barclays always charge me 12 quid though. How come you only get charged six?
Or maybe it is six quid for an intermediary bank.
I don’t know whether the bank does that in a “hidden” way, but if they do it’s not so obvious from the pretty reasonable rates for other major currencies (below is for Mega Bank).
I doubt that sending USD to the UK would make a big difference - my guess is that it would cost more to convert that into GBP in the UK than it does here. There might be some convoluted solution though (like sending USD to a (Transfer)Wise balance and transferring that in GBP to a UK account), but probably more hassle than it’s worth.
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I have an account. It’s my company account.
I got that from their site. I don’t know how much they’ll actually charge yet.
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They definitely don’t at this particular bank. I actually asked about this
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I think another six will get stolen on the way. I always ended up with 12 quid less.
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Fingers crossed
Update:
One day after sending the money I received it in my UK account, but I received £2263.41, instead of the £2,257.41 which I was expecting. This means on the UK side Barclays Bank did not take any fee. This means in total I only lost £24, or 1.04%. Very happy with the cost and the speed.
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So fast
The process in the bank only took about 25 mins too. Very pleased with the whole process.
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