Banking, Bill Payments: US to Singapore

[sandrat888]

One additional method worth looking into: Citi Global Transfer, one needs accounts both in Citi SG and Citi US, flat fee of 10SGD or 10USD depending on the direction. Spread on rates is about 1.7%. Good thing about CGT it's almost instantenous and can be done online anytime of day. Not sure if HSBC has the same perk may be worth asking. I don't know any other banks that service retail in SG and US.

That Citi solution sounds really interesting; I should go into a branch and talk to them about it. That sounds like a good way to avoid having any mistakes too, since it's instantaneous and can be done online anytime of the day (which means I can even do it from work).

Jpatokal's advice on keeping one credit card in the US also makes sense, especially if one needed a backup on top of the above Citi method (I think vendors often charge a fee if you pay a bill using a credit card, though - but still a good backup).

The key is the ability to do most things online.

If you are a HSBC Premiere customer, you can do online transfer from your HSBC account to any HSBC account under your name globally for free. However, you have to have $100k US of assets with HSBC to waive the US$50 monthly fee of a premiere account. There is no limitation of how many times you can do such trasnfer in a given month.

You might want to cal HSBC US and ask. I remember they used to have a free 3 month trail period of HSBC premiere where they don't charge you the $50/month if you do not have enough assets to waive the HSBC premiere fee.