That is, in addition to the fees charged by Wise and intermediate banks. Last time I used Wise, those came up to over 30 USD for me unfortunately.
Pretty standard cable fee for a TT
Was it also Wise->Taiwanese bank?
In my case Wise charged a few EUR and all other fees/currency exchange loss was with the Taiwanese bank.
Could you see the details of what the intermediary bank charged you?
See my post earlier - the charge for the intermediary was actually USD 15 (I remembered it wrong and thought it was USD 25):
Yeah, overall it just makes Wise more expensive than using my normal bank account in my case. So the whole idea of using Wise for cheaper international transfers is kinda botched when I need to pay higher fees for using them vs. a traditional bankā¦
only in cases like TW where there is no domestic facility to pay in/pay out. otherwise, it makes sense
Yeah, for me they stopped being useful when they doubled the fees for transferring USD to Taiwan last year. This post:
I still have a Wise USD balance, but itās cheaper now to just convert it to my Wise GBP balance (minimal fee, on the order of 0.5%), transfer it to my UK account (free), then withdraw from an ATM here (free, essentially ā just the difference between the MasterCard/Visa rate and the midmarket rate).
I noticed I can just use Paypal as a virtual credit card in my phone. I can swipe it almost everywhere where paying by card is possible. The money gets taken out directly from my European bank account and the exchange rate is very(!) fair.
I wonder whatās up with that. Am I missing something? I basically can pay from my foreign bank account at no cost.
Well, it all depends on your conditions with the provider.
At many places here canāt use foreign cards though, I think u canāt use that trick at 7-11 or family mart or PX mart for instance
Flexibility sounds good
200GBP per month withdrawal limit before non-trivial charges less so, IF you were going to use it as a debit card, but I suppose youād be likely to have local alternatives in place for that most of the time.
Amen,
Seems it applies to a flywheel puller for a SYM Wolf 125 too, made just up the road in Hsinchu, but I could get one in France
Heya, for those of you who use Wise in Taiwan, how do you send the balance to your Taiwan bank account? (In my case itāll be E. Sun)
Someone mentioned a SWIFT number, how does one find that info?
Or do you withdraw cash with the lovely green card? (Is there a daily limit?)
If you have a foreign currency account with esun the swift is written on the account booklet together with all the account details.
You can send any major currency to the account, just not TWD as wise canāt deal in TWD.
For smaller amounts itās easier to just use the card at ATM. You can set the limits for the card on the website.
There is a monthly limit for withdrawals where Wise will not add their fee.
How much does it cost to withdraw cash with my Wise card? | Wise Help Centre
Ah yes I have that multi-currency account with E. Sun. Iāve never used it before.
So once the money is in my E. Sun account, I understand itāll be in USD?
Do I have to go into the bank to have it changed to NTD or can I withdraw it as is in NTD?
Thanks I found my card limit and fees info!
yes
you can do it online or via mobile app. Most likely you might need to go to the branch to sign the declaration for the inward remittance (hopefully can be done by them calling u to credit the remittance.)
Thanks so much for the info!
Sometimes works the other way around though. Currently in The Yook and needing a large hypodermic syringe. Pharmacists Iāve asked have apparently never heard of hypodermic syringes, (though they look a bit shifty when saying so) despite being listed on the relevant websites as suppliers of gear to generations of junky gentry, a large customer base in Edinburgh.
The reaction was oddly reminiscent of (for example) that of Tainan Ford main dealer when asked about bearing grease, which theyād apparently never used and couldnāt imagine why anyone would want to.
Syringes, OTOH, are readily available in Taiwan.
Does anyone know if Wise has reduced its fees for transferring USD to Taiwan? I havenāt done any transfers to Taiwan for over a year, but this is what Iām seeing in the app now for a ~US$3k transfer to my Mega Bank account:
If correct, US$12.43 is pretty reasonable! Itās cheaper than what I previously paid back in 2021ā2023 (also Mega Bank), and way cheaper than what I thought the fees had been increased to:
According to the page below, the transfer fee depends on whether Wise predicts there will be an intermediary bank fee (I still think itās insane that the system is so deliberately opaque that banks/customers canāt know this 
), but for a USD transfer to Taiwan the fee should apparently be at least US$31.42, if funded from a Wise USD balance as mine is.
So I donāt know whatās going on here. Maybe it depends on the recipient bank, or I could still be hit with an intermediary bank fee anyway? I remember that Wise previously offered two prices depending on whether I wanted to cover possible intermediary bank fees or not, but that doesnāt seem to be the case anymore.
When Iāve done transfers from Wise to Mega Bank in the past, the total additional fee (not including the initial Wise fee) has been on the order of US$18, where I think the intermediary bank part was about US$11 and Mega Bank charged around US$7 for processing the incoming transfer.
Iāll likely still wait a few weeks to do a bigger transfer to reduce the impact of the fees, but Iām curious why theyāre showing up as so low. I donāt remember receiving any e-mails suggesting that USD transfers would be cheaper. 
To answer my own question, yeah, the estimated fee was misleading. This is what happened:
- I transferred US$4012.43 from my Wise USD balance to my Mega Bank multicurrency account last night around 4:30 a.m.
- The Wise fee was US$12.43 (seems to be fixed irrespective of the transfer amount, at least for the range I tried), so US$4000 sent through SWIFT.
- I received an e-mail from Mega Bank at 9:45 a.m. asking me about the purpose of the remittance and responded telling them to mind their own business (joke). They said the transfer was for US$3989, so US$11.00 in intermediary bank fees.
- Mega Bank decided theyād like a bit of my hard-earned money too, so they deducted another US$6.09 to give a final received amount of US$3982.91.
- Total fees = US$12.43 (Wise) + US$11.00 (thieving intermediary bank) + US$6.09 (Mega Bank) = US$29.52 (0.74%).