sending money to the US from Singapore?

[hamad]

Need to send money to pay the mortgage back home, how to do it...

I have read through messages going way back and the recent thread on foreign currency, but no serious answers it seems...

Options:
1. Citibank transfer, well that looks like S$10 + 2% spread + have Citibank accounts
2. ATM card with any bank and someone back home withdraws money for you to pay mortgage, ATM fees, spread fees, spread unknown

Any other good ways? What do people actually do in this predicament?

-Hamad

[Strong Eagle]

ATM and credit card transfers will cost at least as much, if not more than a wire transfer between banks.

If you are doing this only as a one time shot, then a wire transfer is your best bet. If you can't get a bank to do it, let me know... I wire through Stan Chart all the time and will be glad to help you out.

If you are going to be doing this regularly, then check out http://www.xe.com. With them you can establish electronic debits and credits with your bank accounts and get the lowest fees and best exchange rate.

[sapphire]

What about Paypal? Works for me, although I'm the receiver.

[Mary Hatch Bailey]

We have our US mortgages on Autopay directly out of our checking account, that way they are never late

[hamad]

Mary,

My US mortgage is on autopay right now, but I get paid in USD and its coming out of my USD bank account. Works great, I agree, but now in Singapore, will get paid in SGD. I dont know if they [Wells Fargo] will allow me to autopay from a singapore account in SGD. Or do you have a USD account in Singapore that the money comes out of? This would work good, then I can just take the best bank customer spread.

Strong,

XE
Xe spreads look horrible when I looked at it, see oanda.com/converter/classic, I think they are taking 2-3% or more. I will review it again. Do you actually use this service?

Wires
Yes, wiring at X SGD and then dealing with a currency conversion spread, I was hoping to find out from people where are they getting consisently the lowest wire fees, X and lowest spreads. I saw wire fees of 50 SGD or more on previous threads. Waste of money.

Sapphire,

Paypal takes a 2.5% cut, then there is currency conversion loss, which they dont even say. On top of that Paypal is not a real bank, then we do have sites like paypalsucks.com. Not all the maligning comments are valid, but having spoken to many and having dealt with them, be very careful with your money and paypal.

-Hamad