Hey all,
I have a question about withdrawing money in Taiwan with my UK debit card. Is it possible? Where is the best place? I need about £500 extra but I just got here and have no bank account. I brought around $1500 to start but with rental deposit and course fees I won’t be able to afford food before I get any scholarship money!
Thanks for your help
[quote=“GiantDave”]Hey all,
I have a question about withdrawing money in Taiwan with my UK debit card. Is it possible? Where is the best place? I need about £500 extra but I just got here and have no bank account. I brought around $1500 to start but with rental deposit and course fees I won’t be able to afford food before I get any scholarship money!
Thanks for your help[/quote]
If your card is part of the Cirrus or Visa Plus network - that is what most banks in Europe use - you will have no problems withdrawing money at any ATM in Taiwan. Convenience stores such as 7-11 or Family Mart also have ATMs available. You can easily change the ATM’s language to English. Make sure you choose the correct network (Cirrus or Visa Plus).
[quote=“hsinhai78”][quote=“GiantDave”]Hey all,
I have a question about withdrawing money in Taiwan with my UK debit card. Is it possible? Where is the best place? I need about £500 extra but I just got here and have no bank account. I brought around $1500 to start but with rental deposit and course fees I won’t be able to afford food before I get any scholarship money!
Thanks for your help[/quote]
If your card is part of the Cirrus or Visa Plus network - that is what most banks in Europe use - you will have no problems withdrawing money at any ATM in Taiwan. Convenience stores such as 7-11 or Family Mart also have ATMs available. You can easily change the ATM’s language to English. Make sure you choose the correct network (Cirrus or Visa Plus).[/quote]
It’s a visa debit card. What is the kind of limit I will have on withdrawing? I am going to face some hefty fees of 2.75% charge +£1.50 from my end. What will it be from this end to do it for example in a 7/11 or post office ATM?
Avoid the Chinatrust machines at 711. They charge a $100NT 3USD convenience fee on top of what your foreign bank charges.
Go to Familymart and use a Taishin bank atm, no additional fees will be tacked on from the Taiwan end just from your bank.
Some atms dont like foreign cards from personal experience. Mega bank will work, so will Huanan and Cooperative bank. The post office bank does not accept foreign cards from my experience.
If you want to save multiple transaction fees, you can go to the NIA and get a paper with an ID number on it to open an account, then wire over a lump sum. Yes it likely will cost $20-25 USD all told but it will be just once for the entire.amount you bring over.
Ok sounds great! I will try that then thanks for your help guys
My bank charges me 5% plus 5.00AUD. Which means it eats 10 bucks when I withdraw 100 bucks from AU.
I think your fees are not too bad.
[quote=“dan2006”]Avoid the Chinatrust machines at 711. They charge a $100NT 3USD convenience fee on top of what your foreign bank charges.
Some atms dont like foreign cards from personal experience. Mega bank will work, so will Huanan and Cooperative bank. The post office bank does not accept foreign cards from my experience. [/quote]
All depends on the issuing bank.
Just as overseas withdrawal fees vary from bank to bank, any further charges by the ATM vary.
The problem with post office ATMs (an older ATMs in general) is that they often lead to mistakes on the user side as they give confusing options to chose from.
One thing that can cause trouble especially to people fro, North America is that many ATMs in Taiwan only process transactions made through IC enabled cards. So if your card only has a magnetic strip on the back, many ATMs will not work.
Best option is to open a local bank account and transfer money into it from overseas.
I don’t believe this is taken when I use my Visa debit card. Are you sure about that?
My limit here is $13,000 TWD, and has been unchanged for some time. So the ceiling is 300GBP. My card is zero fees, but yes, the standard for UK banks is something like you describe (2.75% + £1.50), so it would make sense to pull out the maximum 13,000 at each visit.
Back when I had a VISA electron, I couldn’t withdraw money for some reason. With the debit Mastercard I have now, I can withdraw from the Chinatrust ATMs. My limit is 10000 NT$, and on average, it costs me about 6€ of commission every time I withdraw money. That depends mostly on your bank, though.
[quote=“hsinhai78”][quote=“dan2006”]Avoid the Chinatrust machines at 711. They charge a $100NT 3USD convenience fee on top of what your foreign bank charges.
Some atms dont like foreign cards from personal experience. Mega bank will work, so will Huanan and Cooperative bank. The post office bank does not accept foreign cards from my experience. [/quote]
All depends on the issuing bank.
Just as overseas withdrawal fees vary from bank to bank, any further charges by the ATM vary.
The problem with post office ATMs (an older ATMs in general) is that they often lead to mistakes on the user side as they give confusing options to chose from.
One thing that can cause trouble especially to people fro, North America is that many ATMs in Taiwan only process transactions made through IC enabled cards. So if your card only has a magnetic strip on the back, many ATMs will not work.
Best option is to open a local bank account and transfer money into it from overseas.[/quote]
Yes it really does depend on the bank. Most banks in Canada charge 2.5% commission plus a withdrawal fee on top but UK im not so sure.
I have not seen an ATM that charges in Taiwan for foreign cards (an additional fee) with the exception of ChinaTrust which is why I told him to go anywhere else mostly.
And as far as the post office, I used multiple cards (Visa, Mastercard, Cirrus) and pushed for all options (Credit Card, Savings, Checking, Other) and no option whatsoever works there. Bank of Kaohsiung has a similar problem, as well as Cota Bank and Sunny Bank.
I know your card will work at the following banks (Bank of Taiwan, Cooperative, First Bank, Huanan, Chunghua, Citibank, Fubon, Cathay, Mega, Far Eastern, Sinopac, Union, E Sun, and Taishin) and none charge a fee other than Chinatrust.
Yup. Next time you are in 711, put in your card, enter your pin and make like you are going to withdraw money. It will come up with a message that $100 NT will be added to your withdrawal amount, do you accept, yes or no. This was 3 months ago, maybe they have disabled that since none of the other banks followed suit in charging it.
So it’s better to withdraw at the bank rather than the 7/11 it seems? I could get it done while doing my travelers cheques. I went into the bank after 3:30pm on Friday meaning I can’t do it all weekend and have to pay for a weekend at the hotel! Paid for it before the information about the card but wouldn’t have had the money to pay the rent and deposit in full anyway! Teething problems to my start in Taiwan! Thanks for your help.
[quote=“dan2006”][quote=“Nuit”]
I don’t believe this is taken when I use my Visa debit card. Are you sure about that?
[/quote]
Yup. Next time you are in 711, put in your card, enter your pin and make like you are going to withdraw money. It will come up with a message that $100 NT will be added to your withdrawal amount, do you accept, yes or no. This was 3 months ago, maybe they have disabled that since none of the other banks followed suit in charging it.[/quote]
It must be card-issuer specific then, as I’ve never had that message with my current UK card (used regularly in 7-11 for nearly 3 years here now).
Hopefully they do disable it though for all cards, I hate those kind of charges.