Wise (formerly TransferWise)

Does anyone use Transferwise borderless account?

It sounds like a good idea, I have NTD, Dollars, Euros, and now I need UK pounds for tuition in the UK. I can have multiple accounts for different currencies with their own routing number and SWIFT code to send to. And the exchange rates are really favorable with transparent feesAlso comes with a debit card.

Taiwan is not supported. Probably due to ridiculous financial regulations.

I used it to transfer money from Australian to German bank account. Worked well.
It can be useful if you receive money from different countries. You can store many different currencies.

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Like @slawa, I really wanted to use it, but I mostly need to send NTD out of Taiwan so not very useful for me.

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I am using it regularly as I have some income in the UK and regularly need to send EUR to Estonia. It is very reliable and their customer support is superb. I also find their debit card very useful for travelling. No-fee purchases and mid-market CX rates for purchases + some allowance for no-fee ATM withdrawals (in any currency/country) every month.

You can send money onto it from your TW bank account but as previously mentioned, Transferwise does not support CX from NTD so you’d need to complete the CX with your bank here before sending the funds… it kinda defeats the purpose.

Edit: I have previously contacted them about adding support for NTD CX but they said that it wasn’t in their current plans.

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So, what’s a similar one that supports NTD?

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Friends in HK use it to send money home all the time. I’ve filled the form to be updated if it ever comes to Taipei, but yeah I doubt it…

Are there any further recommendations for alternatives to SplitWise that already work in Taiwan? Just checked and SplitWise unfortunately still does not have NTD listed…

Cheers,
Fabian

TransferWise is still great getting money to Taiwan from overseas if your overseas bank charges high fees. My German bank takes additional 1,99% if I use the ATM here (overseas fee) and has a bit worse exchange rate.

I can just transfer it there locally to TransferWise for free. Then TransferWise has quite low fees for exchange to TWD and ATM use.

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This is for a withdrawal from a TransferWise card registered to your German address, rather than a regular TransferWise transfer, is that right? As I understand it, TransferWise cards aren’t currently available for accounts registered in Taiwan (at least according to the website, last time I checked).

I just looked into this a month ago and is the reason I went with HSBC. I could not find any online payment transfer service that was servicing Taiwan. In terms of eliminating fees, sounds like Citibank and HSBC are the best option still. Although fees are still hidden in the fx rate.

Yeah, that’s how they get you.

Transferwise is really great because they give you the market rate and tell you the exact fee they took. I opened an UK bank account with Barclays and I ended up not even using it with how good transferwise is. The only downside of transferwise is there’s no interest on your deposited. But UK banks have really low interest rates anyways. Parts of Europe have negative interest.

I was also surprised by customer support since there’s no actual brick and mortar branch. They email me back so quickly, the chat function is fast, and the calls have short waits if any.

You can actually transfer money to Taiwan using TransferWise, just not TWD. I transferred USD to my Mega Bank foreign currency account a couple of weeks ago.

It ended up not being as cheap as I expected based on my experience with transferring to other countries, but it wasn’t terrible (total amount transferred: 1144.25 USD, TransferWise fee: 4.25 USD, intermediate bank fee: 11 USD, Mega Bank fee: 7.01 USD, Mega Bank cash withdrawal fee (for 1100 USD cash): 8.88 USD/253 TWD; total fees: 31.14 USD (≈2.7%)). The cash withdrawal fee was kind of optional of course, but I assume there would also have been a comparable fee if I’d converted it to TWD.

I couldn’t get transferwise to work. I typically just wire money from USD to a USD Taiwan bank account, and then the Taiwan bank can convert using real time forex rates

Many US banks will waive wire fees (typically $40) if you deposit a certain amount at their bank and become a preferred client and wire happens same day. For example take a look at Chase private client.

Yes, I have the personal account with the debit card with TransferWise. Unfortunately you can only get it with residence addresses in certain countries.

You can get notified if they add Taiwan.

We should be careful saying what’s “not supported”.

Yes sending/receiving money out of/in Taiwan as “NT” or “TWD” is not supported because it’s prohibited by Taiwan’s government. (Unless you have special permission)

But TransferWise does work for inbound and outbound currencies of major economies with a from/to foreign currency denominated account in Taiwan.

It’s clearly mentioned here:

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Sending USD worldwide via SWIFT like a real currency, has nothing to do with Taiwan.

And this why Taiwan’s financial system is pathetic. Taiwan financial hub. :joy:

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The financial hub idea indeed died a death years ago.
I hate the banks here, they just exist to make things slow, cumbersome and expensive.

Yup. From the horse’s mouth:

Only capital movement is liberalized. Current account… not so.

What to do … imagine a person sitting abroad gets a wire transfer and looks at the country field: “TW”. Then checks UN recognized countries

Argh :sunglasses::grimacing:

Transferwise is the best service. Highly recommended.

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