As a new permanent resident of Brasil, I have been transferring money regularly (<$10,000 each time) from the U.S. to my bank account in Brasil. I plan to use the money to buy a house there, as well as make some investments (e.g., some friends and I are lending money to a couple of brothers in Manaus so that they can buy a boat to give tours). Anyway, I have been using Remitly, as it gave me the best exchange rate. However, they (and/or their bank - Banco Daycoval) have apparently become suspicious of my transfers and requested a bunch of documents from me. I understand them trying to keep an eye on money laundering and support that. However, I couldn't provide some documents (all of the utility bills are in my partner's name) and didn't even understand what some of the documents were (they wanted copies of "cashier's checks" from the past several months - I am sure that there was a translation problem there but they sent me the messages in English....). But what was particularly frustrating was that I would explain that I couldn't provide the information, yet they would simply just request the same documents without any explanation or effort on their part to understand the problem. I provided the documents that I could but finally had to tell them to cancel the transfer. I'll use another company (Wise or Remessa). Has anyone else had this problem with Remitly or other money transfer companies? It's hard to send enough money to Brasil to buy a house if the government and/or banks have so many road blocks.
Sending money to Brasil
What % do Brazilian banks take for every 100 K USD you send in?
02/09/23 @timhoffnagle. As I've written about in other threads, I had the same kind of problem with Wise in April 2022. As in your case, it was the Brazilian bank partner of the transfer company that was the source of the trouble, and we didn't have a language barrier. Just a bureaucracy barrier, but it turned out to be insurmountable.
For what it's worth, I did a normal SWIFT transfer of the entire purchase price of our apartment, plus 10% for planned renovations, with just some advance notice to my branch manager at Banco do Brasil. No delays, no problems. I DID have to file my one and only FATCA report the next time I did my US taxes though, for the few days that the money was in my Brazilian account.
On another topic, if you make it out to Manaus on your investment project, let me know in advance, and we'll have a beer. Or several. 🍻
@john8670 I'm not sure where all the money goes. There are some taxes and government fees that are paid and the bank takes some profit on it. So, you don't get the "official" exchange rate that you can find on the internet. However, it isn't too bad, depending on how you send the money. I have found that the best rates come from the internet companies (Wise, Remitly, etc.) and doing it through a bank is the worst.
@abthree how did you do the SWIFT transfer? Maybe it's just the bank that I have in Brasil (Nubank) but they told me that they won't take dollars. My friends are trying to send their part of our investment ($20,000) and their bank asked for the SWIFT information but Nubank told us that they only accept reais and don't do the currency exchange, so they don't even have SWIFT. My friends are old (like me...LOL) and don't trust online companies with their banking information, which is making this process harder than it needs to be. Maybe this would be easier if I got an account at a bank like Banco do Brasil or Santander, etc.
02/09/23 @timhoffnagle. I'm like your friends where online banks are concerned. Thanks for the clue about how Nubank manages to operate here -- I've always wondered. 😂
Banco do Brasil (BB) and Caixa Econômica Federal ("Caixa", "CEF") are the biggest and they're everywhere in Brazil. Caixa's fees are a little lower, BB has more offices. They're government-owned, so nobody's going to buy them, and they're not going anywhere. We bank with BB mostly for those reasons; my husband's at the start of his career, we'll probably be moving around some, and wherever we are, I want our bank nearby. Bradesco, Santander, and Itaú are good private sector banks that all have nationwide networks, full service, and are fully compliant with international and Banco Central regulations and fully integrated in the international transfer system over SWIFT. Your bank sends them dollars, they convert them and put reais in your account.
I do a monthly transfer from my bank in the US to BB. Usually, my US bank makes the transfer first thing in the morning, and I can release it to my account on the BB phone app that afternoon; if I miss that for some reason, I can do it first thing next morning.
I have done a few large purchases with a US-based VISA card. Large enough to be able to compare what they charge my account (in US $) with what the price of the item was (in reais) against the current exchange rate. And I have found that the rate they are giving me is exactly the XE published rate, minus a few pennies. None of this 5% skim foolishness. I am going to march down to Bradesco this morning and ask them if they will draw a large cash advance on that card. wish me luck.....
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