HSBC banking

[HeartThais]

Have any of you HSBC customers worked out the math on wiring money to a Thai bank account vs. just using your atm card?

[SiLeakHunt]

it will cost you about £25 if you're in the UK.

If it's a regular thing you can work out easier ways though depending on the recipient.

 

Cheers

[HeartThais]

I've done some research and thought I'd share. For non-Premier HSBC accounts, the fee for using a Thai ATM is about 2.75% foreign exchange surcharge and 2% ATM fee. Pretty hefty.

 

The cheapest transfer method will be to open a Thai bank account and wire-transfer GBP, letting the local bank do the currency exchange.

[CondomKing]

I have always used my Citibank ATM card to transfer money to Thailand but when the "foreign fee" charges went up to 3% I decided to look into wire transfer. What motivated me to actually start doing wire transfers was the purchase of a peice of land my wife and I made recently. We have an agreement with the seller to pay 100,000 B per month for a specified time until the purchase price is paid. So, I do need to get that amount sent over on monthly basis.

 

Anyway, since I don't have an HSBC account and Citibank accounts in Thailand and the US cannot be linked there is also a US $30 fee for the transfer. A couple of weeks ago I was in my Citibank branch in the US and the banker told me that it's actually cheaper to use the ATM than to wire the funds, provided that the amounts aren't so large that it makes it ridiculous to use the ATM. He said that this is because the ATM rate is the highest rate available and that after deducting the 3% fee the ATM rate is still a fraction higher than the wire tranfer rate, especially if I were paying an additional 1% due to the $30 international transfer fee that I'd incur on my approx. $3000 transfers.

 

So, I roughly did the math based on the one wire transfer that I made and compared it to the last ATM withdrawl that my wife made in Thailand and guess what, the ATM was cheaper. Not as exact as if the transfer and ATM withdrawl were both executed on the same day but it did make me feel better about using the ATM even with the 3% fee. After all, the ATM is somewhat more convenient.

[HeartThais]

Did you do the transfer in baht or your native currency?

[CondomKing]

Did you do the transfer in baht or your native currency?

I did the transfer in US dollars, then asked my wife how much landed in her account and was then able to figure out the rate. As I stated, in my particular case, because my US account is at Citibank, I also factored in the transfer fee.

 

[WorldFun]

only you know best condomking, but I say the bank is talking nonsense since how do they know well what wire transfer rate you're likely to get by Thai banks?

So as you said maybe you accidentally timed your ATM transfer favorable & your TT unfavorable thus you came out with conclusion ATM as best choice?

 

in my experience as long as we're talking more than a few baht here & there doing wires are superior to ATM/CC rates even if no exchange rate load was added by the card issuer like the 3% in your case.

 

cash buying rate for thai banks is usually very close to typical ATM/Visa rates which again translates out at some ~1-2% above the mean rates as quoted by the likes of oanda.com, xenon.com etc.

 

wire rates (TT rates) by thai banks are then another ~1% better than cash/atm meaning much closer to median rates.

This is all assuming we're talking outside of the era of 30% withholding by BOT which skewed the THB onshore/offshore rates, but that's history for now at least :-)

 

p.s. I bank with citibank in multiple non US countries though & have e.g. a fee free ATM card if using Citi's Sathorn branch. Still wire transfers comes out most favorably...

[CondomKing]

WorldFun - I agree with you, and I would assume that the WT would result in the best rate. At the same time the guy in the bank did seem to know what he was talking about and he said it was from personal experience. Not to Thailand but based on comparing the rates between ATM and WT to England.

 

Anyway, it just made me feel a little better about sending money via ATM sometimes.