[Hidden-tech] Getting money from over there to here without making the banks rich

[Maria Trombly]

If anyone has a solution, I'd love to hear this, too -- I'm sending money
from Hong Kong to India, the Philippines, China and the US. The wire
transfer fees are killer. For smaller amounts, we use PayPal (which has a
system for accepting credit cards as well, if you want to use it to accept
payments). But PayPal takes a percentage, so that starts to add up with
large transfers.

There are two things we've come up with so far: one is to consolidate
transfers -- transfer as much money to the US as possible for US-based
payments,all at once, then use ACH (direct debit) or checks over here to
distribute the money further. The other is to make fewer payments -- instead
of a payment a month, a payment every other month.

I do know that some banks have remittances programs -- this is where
immigrants send money home to families, so they get the fees down really
really low. For example, ICICI, one of India's major banks, has a low-cost
option of sending funds from the U.S. to India. The way they do it is by ACH
payment here in the U.S. (electronic bank debit) to a branch of their bank
in the US. Then they transfer the funds to their home office in India then,
once there, through the local Indian payment system.

Maybe you can find a bank that has branches both in Denmark and in the US,
and have that bank do the transfers for you. Typically, though, this would
require opening two bank accounts -- one here and one over there.

I'm looking for a way to do this Hong Kong-U.S. if anyone knows of any bank
that does this.

Best,

-- Maria

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 6:04 PM, Jeanne Yocum <Jeanne at yourghostwriter.com>wrote:

>   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
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>
> Hi,
>
> I have a client in Denmark who has been paying me by making a wire transfer
> into my bank account. Every time he sends me $2K, his bank takes about $40
> out of the $2K and then my bank also charges me a $20 fee. So we're out
> roughly $60 all told. We are now entering into a retainer relationship, so
> he'll be sending money each month...and, of course, we both would like to
> eliminate the ridiculous bank fees.
>
> I asked my bank what would happen if he just FedExed me a check made out in
> Euros and they said they would charge me $50 to change the Euros to
> dollars.
> I also checked Western Union and it turns out they would charge in that
> range also for the transaction. (Funny how no matter how you do it, it ends
> up costing about the same amount...why is that?)
>
> Does anybody know how to get money from there to here for less than 50 to
> 60
> bucks per transaction?  My client will be traveling to the U.S. in a few
> weeks and is wondering if he can go into one of the major banks, provide
> them with my account number, hand them his credit card and ask them to make
> a deposit to my account and charge it to his credit card.  Would this work?
>
> Thanks for any input.
>
> Best,
>
> Jeanne Yocum  | Principal
> ____________________________
> Tuscarora Communications, Ltd.
> Granby, MA
> www.yourghostwriter.com
> Member: National Writers Union
>
>
>
>
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-- 
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Maria Trombly | TROMBLY LTD
Covering Asian securities, payments and technology for the world's top trade
magazines
Work: 413-323-4356 | Cell: 413-559-9055 | maria at tromblyltd.com
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