SG banks, SWIFT, the `Commission In Lieu of Exchange'

[west2east]

Sending money to other countries is a regular thing for us. We have family and investments in various countries and we send various payments every month in different currencies.

In Europe, a bank charges the equivalent of about $5 - $10 fixed price for each money transfer, plus the margin on FX. If there is no FX, then only the basic fee is charged. Some banks have no fee at all now for Euro payments to Euro accounts anywhere.

In practice, we use a well known broker. They can accept payment in about 10 major currencies, and send the money out in one of the other currencies. Their commission is under 1%. There is no charge for sending money from the regular bank to the broker.

We've noticed the retail banks in Singapore seem to have a charge called `Commission in Lieu of Exchange', basically, they are charging an FX margin, even if the payment is in SGD (e.g. even if I send SGD to an SGD account in Europe/Jersey/Switzerland, etc), they are still going to penalise me with a commission

Are there any progressive banks that don't charge this for payments made online, for example?

Or are there money brokers with local accounts in Singapore that can receive SGD, do a competitive FX and deposit it in the UK, etc?

We looked at the MAS web site and found a list of `remittance companies', but none of them really stand out:
http://www.mas.gov.sg/licensing_guide/b ... nsees.html

Do any of them offer a web based service like UKForex, HiFX, Wechselstube, etc?

[west2east]

I found some more info that may be part of the solution:

HSBC is offering some fee-free payments to `self-named' accounts with HSBC in the UK or other countries, for customers on the `Premium' tariff

Moneycorp (a UK broker) is using HSBC for their client accounts

http://www.hsbc.com.sg/1/PA_1_4_S5/cont ... s_2012.pdf

Has anyone used this combination, or anything similar, to successfully avoid the commission-in-lieu-of-exchange?

[zzm9980]

I'm not 100% sure I know what you're looking for, but Citibank will do fee-free xfers from your Singapore-based accounts to any other Citibank account in the world, and the spread is extremely small. Always within fractions of a percent when I xfer to my USD account in USA. Their other banks sometimes charge a fee to xfer back to Singapore though, depending on the market. US to SG is a flat US $11 fee.