Glad to be of help. I only found that tool within the app on my phone whilst responding to your post, so thanks for the "nudge".mahjongguy wrote:Jun, thx for mentioning the XE comparison feature. It really is a nifty tool.
That's an expensive way to look at it.gera wrote:Since BKK bank has excellent TT (telegraphic transfer) rate, the simple method of mahjongguy for the amount he is using is difficult to beat.
The BKK bank website shows a TT rate of 32.53. XE shows 32.73.
For a $5000 transaction, the theoretical lossless transaction gets 32.73 x5000 = 163650
Paying your US bank $35 and getting the BKK TT rate gets you 161511, a loss of 1.31%.
That's made up of about 0.6% on the TT rate and 0.7% paid to your US bank.
Or for the $30 k example, 0.12% paid to the bank & 0.6% on the TT rate, so 0.72%.
I wouldn't ignore the TT rate discrepancy personally, as it is the largest component of the fees.
Beware, some banks charge for receiving money (at least they do in some countries), so that may need to be added on.
I imagine you would get something close to 0.5% with Transferwise, assuming paying the USD to your Transferwise account is free (as it is in the UK).
Putting ALL the costs in makes the post more useful for readers.
I do learn from these threads, so find them useful.
I only found Transferwise when Christian recommended it and have so far saved about £400 compared with my previous broker, plus it's a much faster service. (Would be about £1000 saved compared with my bank).
I've also noticed the spread on USD-THB can be much narrower than GBP-THB.