Bank to Bank Money Transfer

Have you checked out TransferWise? I use it for transferring from the UK to Malaysia and Indonesia but not sure if they work with Thailand and Philippines, but defintiely worth checking out because during weekdays the transfer is almost instantaneous and exchange rates and fees are low.

In this context TransferWise is mentioned again and again.
With TransferWise you can transfer money to many countries, but only from a few countries to other countries.
As far as I know Thailand and Vietnam are not among these countries from where you can transfer money to other countries.

TransferWise is cost effective

You can add Malaysia to that list. I've tried to use TransferWise with a couple of banks there and it won't accept transfers out of Malaysia. I guess the best way for your American friend is to do the transfer is the traditional way by going in to his bank branch.

Shill88 wrote:

You can add Malaysia to that list. I've tried to use TransferWise with a couple of banks there and it won't accept transfers out of Malaysia.

Did they explicitely state this? Their site would suggest that all 3 countries mentioned are supported. Were you trying to send a sum in local currency?

atomheart wrote:

Shill88 wrote:

You can add Malaysia to that list. I've tried to use TransferWise with a couple of banks there and it won't accept transfers out of Malaysia.

Did they explicitely state this? Their site would suggest that all 3 countries mentioned are supported. Were you trying to send a sum in local currency?

How does TransferWise work?

You register in your home country or in the country where you reside (if possible).
You will then have an account in the currency of that country (e.g. EUR).
You can then open different accounts in different currencies (e.g. THB).
Now you have to make a bank transfer from your bank to your TransferWise account (e.g. EUR). This is usually free of charge.
Then you can change EUR to THB within seconds.
Now you can transfer THB to your Thai bank account.

The other way round?
If you would have a Thai TransferWise account as you have when you registered in EUR, it would work. You could make a THB bank transfer from your Thai bank to your TransferWise account. Then you could convert the money from THB to EUR and could transfer EUR to the EUR account of your house bank.

But this is not possible in Thailand or other Asian countries, because you cannot transfer THB, VND, MYR, etc. to your TransferWise account (you might be able to transfer the money from a Thai credit card to the TransferWise account, but the fees are much too high).
You should have a EUR account in Thailand. Then you can make a bank transfer to your TransferWise EUR account.
But in this direction your TransferWise EUR account is a normal account and has no financial advantages over your EUR house bank.
So you can transfer directly from your Thai EUR account to your house bank account.

AkaMaverick wrote:

atomheart wrote:

Shill88 wrote:

You can add Malaysia to that list. I've tried to use TransferWise with a couple of banks there and it won't accept transfers out of Malaysia.

Did they explicitely state this? Their site would suggest that all 3 countries mentioned are supported. Were you trying to send a sum in local currency?

How does TransferWise work?

You register in your home country or in the country where you reside (if possible).
You will then have an account in the currency of that country (e.g. EUR).
You can then open different accounts in different currencies (e.g. THB).
Now you have to make a bank transfer from your bank to your TransferWise account (e.g. EUR). This is usually free of charge.
Then you can change EUR to THB within seconds.
Now you can transfer THB to your Thai bank account.

The other way round?
If you would have a Thai TransferWise account as you have when you registered in EUR, it would work. You could make a THB bank transfer from your Thai bank to your TransferWise account. Then you could convert the money from THB to EUR and could transfer EUR to the EUR account of your house bank.

But this is not possible in Thailand or other Asian countries, because you cannot transfer THB, VND, MYR, etc. to your TransferWise account (you might be able to transfer the money from a Thai credit card to the TransferWise account, but the fees are much too high).
You should have a EUR account in Thailand. Then you can make a bank transfer to your TransferWise EUR account.
But in this direction your TransferWise EUR account is a normal account and has no financial advantages over your EUR house bank.
So you can transfer directly from your Thai EUR account to your house bank account.

You don't need to transfer your THB into your TW account, you just specify the target vietnamese VND account, choose to pay with THB and bank transfer, then do the local THB transfer to the account TW gives you. Or I misunderstood you?

atomheart wrote:

AkaMaverick wrote:

atomheart wrote:

Did they explicitely state this? Their site would suggest that all 3 countries mentioned are supported. Were you trying to send a sum in local currency?

How does TransferWise work?

You register in your home country or in the country where you reside (if possible).
You will then have an account in the currency of that country (e.g. EUR).
You can then open different accounts in different currencies (e.g. THB).
Now you have to make a bank transfer from your bank to your TransferWise account (e.g. EUR). This is usually free of charge.
Then you can change EUR to THB within seconds.
Now you can transfer THB to your Thai bank account.

The other way round?
If you would have a Thai TransferWise account as you have when you registered in EUR, it would work. You could make a THB bank transfer from your Thai bank to your TransferWise account. Then you could convert the money from THB to EUR and could transfer EUR to the EUR account of your house bank.

But this is not possible in Thailand or other Asian countries, because you cannot transfer THB, VND, MYR, etc. to your TransferWise account (you might be able to transfer the money from a Thai credit card to the TransferWise account, but the fees are much too high).
You should have a EUR account in Thailand. Then you can make a bank transfer to your TransferWise EUR account.
But in this direction your TransferWise EUR account is a normal account and has no financial advantages over your EUR house bank.
So you can transfer directly from your Thai EUR account to your house bank account.

You don't need to transfer your THB into your TW account, you just specify the target vietnamese VND account, choose to pay with THB and bank transfer, then do the local THB transfer to the account TW gives you. Or I misunderstood you?

I don't know exactly what you mean.

in my previous post I said that it is not possible to transfer THB or VND via TransferWise out of Thailand or Vietnam.

Maybe there are differences depending on which country you are registered with TransferWise in (different banking laws).
But with my TransferWise I can only send as much money as is available on one of the TransferWise currency accounts (balances).
So I first have to transfer money from a bank to one of the currency accounts before I can transfer it to another country.
And I can't transfer THB to my TransferWise account.
When I select "Add Balance" I get this message:
You'll be able to hold THB to pay for future transfers. You can't add THB directly but you can still get THB by converting it from another currency in your TransferWise account.
If I want to "Add" money I can select THB, but under "Paying with" there are only about 20 currencies (no THB).
What you describe doesn't work for me.

AkaMaverick wrote:

I don't know exactly what you mean.

in my previous post I said that it is not possible to transfer THB or VND via TransferWise out of Thailand or Vietnam.

It seemed to me that you were talking about adding THB to your TW Borderless account, and not the original money transfer service they had before they introduced Borderless. With the latter there should not have been difficulties as TW gives you a local bank account into which you can transfer the THB. Or at least that was my assumption, but looks like I'm wrong then.

Hi Atomheart,

What I mean is that with my UK TransferWise account, it doesn't seem to accept Malaysian Ringgit. I mean in the drop box Ringgit is not there, and if I type it in to search then it doesn't come up but reverts to another currency with a similar spelling such as Hungarian currency.

If I try to make a direct transfer form Malaysia to Indonesia without first transferring Malaysian Ringgit into GBP then it asks all the normal questions and then suddenly requires my status (expat, working there etc) and asks me to upload a copy of the Malaysian visa from my passport.

So at the moment it is much easier to just withdraw cash form ATM machines here in Indonesia using Malaysian Debit cards.