Wiring Large Amount of Cash into Taiwan

Hey. I did 2 large transfers from Canada. One was a check deposit from my Can Account. Don’t do that. What a hassle.
Second was a SMART transfer (bank to bank) at BOOC (bank of overseas Chinese). It went no prob, no fees that I could see, but we can’t remember. It went so smoothly that we never looked. I put the into a Canadian account so that I could transfer when I needed it. This made me mega $ as the exchange rate swept up greatly. It was 27 at first and is about 30 now! I think it took about a week to 9 working days.

Did BOOC charge you $24NT per every $100 dollars Canadian you put into your Canadian currency account? That’s what Megabank is asking for. Which I think is unreasonable. Does anyone think the CDN dollar is going to go any higher, or do you think its peak? I’m still debating whether to have my parents send it exchanged to NT or keep it as CDN dollars and put it in a CDN currency account when it arrives.

Oh goodness. I seems we hardly pay any fees at all at BOOC. We even get a better than posted rate on exchange. I highly recommend them, but they have been bought by City bank. Maybe I will have a city bank account now. Is that good?

I am very glad I kept my $ in Canadian. In one day we made over 20,000 Nt! If you can do it them I recommend it. I don’t see any reason for it to go down soon, maybe not till after Bush.

[quote=“citizen k”][quote=“frokky”]I’m interning at The Bank of Nova Scotia Taipei Branch.

I’ll ask our treasury/FX department for you on Monday and get back to you.
The process could be safer and easier than going through a local bank.

Btw - CAD is good to hold on to as they are predicting it to be on par with USD soon.
Got to 1.072 a few days ago which is an all time record.[/quote]

frokky, does Scotia Bank in TW actually handle private banking? I thought they were business and investment only here…[/quote]

You’re right… we don’t usually deal with private banking since they are mainly small amounts.

But anything is negociable when the $$$ is big enough.

CAD is up again… 1.0611 around 9am this morning.

so up 100 points from mid-last week…

Ok… here’s how it goes.

Your parents go to any bank in Canada and transfer the money to Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), Taipei branch but list the beneficiary as you.

Make sure your full name (as appears on passport), passport number, TW contact phone number and address are specified.

Nova Scotia Taipei will receive an electronic notification of this transfer and will contact you.
You will need to come in with your passport and once your identity has been confirmed, TWD will be issued to you. You may choose to have the TWD wired to any local bank of your choice.

An exchange rate can be calculated by the FX dealers on the spot if you request for it. Also, the rates here are significantly better than the rates at local banks. I’ve compared.

If your parents initiate the transfer from a Scotiabank branch in Canada, your money will be available in Taipei the very next business day. If it is done at a different Canadian bank, it may take another day or two extra.

There will be a handling fee of NT$500 with no upper or lower limit to the amount transfered.
Anyone can come and do this.

Even though it’s a bit of a hassle having to come into the Taipei branch, it’s safe and efficient with no worries of it being rejected or getting lost. We’re 5min walk from MRT Zhong Shan Jnr High station.

If you want to hold on to the CAD and speculate on it appreciating, then just place it in a BNS account in Canada, then transfer it to BNS Taipei when you want it. That way you get the best interest rates you can. I find the foreign currency accounts in Taiwan generally have a lower interest rate than their the originating country. For example, interest on AUD is around 5.3% at local banks, but in Australia you could get 6%.

Thanks for the info, but how do they know where to send it if I don’t have a bank account with BNS in Taiwan. I would need to give my my account number and the bank’s swift number, but I wouldn’t have that if I sent it to BNS. I think from reading this thread and talking to people who have TT money into Taiwan, I think using the local banks is okay, and actually quite simple. My only dilemma now is finding a bank that doesn’t charge me a service fee for every $100CDN I stick into a Canadian currency account, like Megabank does.

You don’t need an account with BNS Taipei.
Your parents wire the money to Taipei Branch’s account, but you are listed as the beneficiary of this amount. When you come in to claim the money you can tell them to send it to any local bank of your choice.

CAD Update: 1.0577 against USD… about 31.2TWD as of 4pm

Damn you Canadians… haha

I know everyone is going to have conflicting opinions about choice of banks etc. but I have one word for anyone considering banking of a remotely international nature in Taiwan: CitiBank. I’ve made or received every kind of transfer under the sun with them and they’ve been great every time. TaiShin are also pretty good about international transfers and regulatory issues but they’ve been not so good in other areas so I wouldn’t really recommend them.

Update:

Well, everything went quite smoothly. I used First Bank to receive the incoming wire from Canada. It went so smoothly it was shocking. My parents wire the money Thursday morning (Canada time) and the bank called in the morning to come sign for the wire Friday morning (Taiwan time). It took less than 12 hours for the transfer, that’s pretty good IMO. The Canadian side charge my parents $45CDN and the First Bank charged me $800NT on this side. Decided to leave half in a Canadian currency account to earn the 3% interest, and unlike Megabank, First Bank didn’t charge $24NT for every $100CDN I put in. So all-in-all it was quite simple. Just wished that I had gotten the wire a week earlier when the Canadian dollar was at its peak, oh well.

Just one complaint, I wish that the First Bank would have dividers at their counters. There’s absolutely no privacy, the guys standing next to can hear everything and see everything you are doing.

Glad to hear it went smoothly. Hope you and your lady find a nice house to invest it in. :slight_smile:

Thanks. Its been hard finding at place we like for the right price. I hear the market is too hot right now, so will probably wait a few more months until it cools down.

Ironically after saying earlier here how easy wire transfers are, I had my first hitch in wiring in money. Last week when I was in the US I wired back some money to my account. Previously I’d signed some form that would let them automatically accept wire transfers under TW$500k so that they would only need verbal approval from my wife or I to accept wires and wouldn’t need to fill out and sign a form every time.

This time the wire arrived here last Friday, but they found they had an old copy of my ARC which didn’t have the updated expiration date (it was renewed last year) so they couldn’t accept it automatically. Of course I was on my way back to Taiwan at that point and didn’t arrive until Saturday morning. Then because of the dragon boat holiday the banks were closed Monday and Tuesday.

Wednesday morning we go in and find out that the foreign exchange person was on holiday that day. (WTF? Just one person out and they can’t do any forex?) The teller was nice enough to call another office to try to get it through but the other office didn’t have all the paperwork and weren’t able to do it. But she did get a copy of my ARC so that everything would be ready to go.

Thursday I was in an all-day meeting and wasn’t able to go to the bank. Friday morning I go in and easy-peasy it takes less than five minutes to get it in my account. However, Thursday the CBC raised interest rates 1/4 point and so the TW$ was trading at a three-month high by the time my forex went through. :fume:

how about wiring large amount out of Taiwan to USA? bank say over .5 million then I have to fill out a form, not really sure what’s that form for. and will I get taxed in the states?

If you’ve properly filed tax returns for that income in Taiwan and the US (if you are a US citizen or permanent resident) then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

Yeah, banks are sticky about that. It’s a hassle, but best to give/fax them a copy everytime you renew your ARC. Same goes for credit cards.

Once any account get over a 10K USD deposit, the business tax id or the personal SS number is reported to the authorities. Post 9/11 prevents PO Box address linked to bank accounts, so a little harder say you never got the paper work.

Recommendation is keep the wires under 10K USD, if your account in the USA doesn’t normally get large deposits. Or file extensions for your income taxes for the next seven of years, to reduce audits, until that flag sent to the authorities become less relevant over time.

I see that’s exactly what I wanted to know, thanks a lot.

btw if you missed filing any tax, and when they find out you just pay what you missed? or they will fine you a % or what.

Missed filing is not the problem. Can’t squeeze blood out of a stone. IRA won’t waste time on you if you really have no income. Cost money to audit people.

They audit you when there is enough flags on your filing within your tax bracket. They will try to make up or discover a sizeable hidden income.

Basically they will

  1. fine you
  2. collect what they calculate you owe
  3. collect the penalty interest of what you owe, compounded

If you get audited it is very messy. You will need a CPA and maybe a tax lawyer to respent you.

Best find a CPA and have them figure out how to work out your missed filing before you get audited.

when I was in the states I was just a student, just had some CD and savings account so basically no job, actually had a part time job. I don’t have to file any tax do I? and now I am in Taiwan I wire money to US, I don’t need to file any tax since I have no job in USA? hehe I know absolutly nothing about taxes.

Any annual income under $3000 USD need not be reported. Assuming you are a US resident or citizens, you’re obligated to report any overseas income.

Think about it this way. IRA lawyers make about 120,000 annually. They need about 8 weeks to process an audit. That’s about 20,000 USD. Do you think you owe 20,000 USD in taxes or back taxes? It’s a simple risk analysis matrix.