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I'm getting ready to come to Vietnam to work soon and I was wondering how easy or difficult it is to transfer some of the money that I make to a foreign bank account. What are the best options available? Any other advise? I need to pay some bills off. Thanks!

James_T_Kirk · Joined: 20 Sep 2003 Posts: 357 Location: Ten Forward

I don't have any firsthand experience with this process myself, but, based on what I've read on the board, here is my limited understanding of the system:

a) Each transfer costs approximately $25 USD (not including what your bank at home might charge to receive a transfer from an overseas account).

b) A letter from your employer is necessary to do this...you are allowed to transfer up to 60% of your earnings to your home account.

c) Average transfer takes approximately 3 working days.

Cheers,
Kirk

Micro67 · Joined: 29 May 2003 Posts: 297 Location: HCMC, Vietnam

It can be quite expensive, but now Chau Hong Vina (sp?) has a deal where you can send up to $3,000 for only $25 and up to $1,000 for $17. Western Union is one way here.

hanisay · Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 31 Location: HCMC

cho hung vina bank (the korean bank on 5 ho tung mao) rocks, sacombank sucks (don't open an account there.) cho hung vina charges nothing to open an account and there is no minimum required for your account. you can transfer any amount of money to an overseas bank for $20. they also have online banking. sacombank on the other hand is highly unprofessional- you can't transfer money even within vietnam much less overseas. they don't give you a bank book (they instead keep track of your money on a hand written purple construction paper folder) and no matter how much you try to communicate with them trhough the glass partition, they're English is not great. i tried c losing my acount there and they insisted that they get to keep the final 10$ i had in my atm account. i tried to argue politely with the manager about it, but he just stared at me. altogether, a highly unprofessional bank.

Ajarn Miguk · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Posts: 227 Location: TDY As Assigned

hanisay · Joined: 23 Feb 2003 Posts: 31 Location: HCMC

As far as I know, there are 2 different accounts you can open at cho hung vina. I have a u.s. dollar account there since that's how my paycheck's directly deposited by my employer, but I think you can keep both u.s. dollar or dong or both. With that kind of account, I can only deposit money if I show them a letter from my employer showing where it was earned, but I can transfer money at will overseas. I've transfered as much as $4,000 at a time for a $20 fee. You can also open up an account where you can deposit money from anywhere without any questions or papers asked, but I believe this account does not allow you to transfer overseas. You could probably open one of both types of accounts, I'm not sure. They speak great English there though and are really helpful. When I transfer money overseas, it shows up either a few hours later or the next day. Hope this helps!