Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jennad]

How the hell does everyone else transfer money back home to pay their bills every month without wasting a ton of money?? I pay my student loans etc. through online banking with Bank of America. So every month I have to transfer money from KB back to the States.

By the time you take into account the exchange rate and transfer fees from BOTH banks (total between 60-70 USD) I've wasted nearly 100,000 Won from JUST TRANSFER FEES/EXCHANGE RATE.

There must be a better way.....there has to be! Others have suggested I save a bit more money, then transfer every couple of months, but I can't do this as my bills need to be paid monthly, and I don't have enough in my US account right now for this to be feasible.

Is there some money-saving method I'm missing out on?

[thegadfly]

Buy traveler's cheques and use those to pay your bills -- you can definitely get them in $100 and $500 amounts, and I think $50s may also be available...my bank used to have $1k ones as well, but I haven't seen them lately. I used to pay my credit card bills and student loans with traveler's cheques -- I had to mail them well ahead of time to beat my billing deadlines and avoid late charges, but once I got the pattern down, it was a snap...and since I was paying in $100 or $500 increments, and my actual minimum payments were not such round numbers, it also helped me a bit in paying down the balance at the time...I HAD to overpay that $79.52 minimum payment as a $100 payment....

If you have someone you trust back home, you can make additional checks out to that person for deposit into your account. You are not supposed to mail traveler's cheques, but if they were to get lost in the mail, one could simply report them as "lost" without specifying where they were lost.

I have a KEB foreign remittance account, but I have not yet tested the exchange rate in the account against the exchange rate of purchasing traveler's cheques. I DO know that a transfer from KEB savings to KEB remittance, then to the US had about $40 LESS in fees than KB savings to KEB remittance, then to the US....

Finally, the absolute cheapest would probably be to let as much cash as possible build up, wait for the exchange to go your way, then have the entire amount put into a single cashier's check (which I think has a flat fee rather than a percentage). It was suggested by someone at my US bank, when I had tried to get incoming remittance fees waived on my US account....

[highstreet]

I've used KB to send money a couple times.

Set up ATM transfer, the charge is only 8,000WON. The middle man fee is 13,000 iirc. But I've never been charged it for some unknown reason. Also my bank at home doesn't charge me a fee (Wachovia).

[davai!]

[oldtactics]

I can't possibly see how mailing travellers cheques every month is in any way more effective than internet banking.

KEB only costs about 7,000 plus whatever my incoming bank charges, I think around 10k total. Nothing you can do about the exchange rate but I think the consensus around here is the KEB is the best for just about everything banking related. Come on over, it's nice here.

[jonpurdy]

KEB: 8,000. And if your home bank doesn't charge fees then that's it.

[plchron]

KEB is supposed to be the cheapest. I used to send 'cashiers checks' home. i would have the bank make them out to US dollars. it cost me about $10 to make the check + postage. You can also send he checks directly to your bank, but you have to have them made out to the account or something, call your bank's 1 - 800 number about that.

[thurst]

when i used to transfer money home with nonghyup it was around 6000KRW and then when i moved to seoul the nonghyup near me didn't do transfers so i would withdraw cash and go to the hana bank next door and it was only 7000KRW...and 2 months ago i switched to KEB and it's around the same.

the point being, i don't know how you're possibly paying 60-70000 KRW to send money home even adding the $20 capital one tacks on to any wire transfer.

[chrisinkorea2011]

KEB has direct transfers, its a flat fee of 8000 won. then whatever the exchange rate is. The only bad side is that if you try to send when the exchange rate changes, it will come back as an error stating that you cant transfer when the exchange rate is changing. But other than that its good. The only downside to my bank is that it charges 20 dollars in the usa. but hey its better than 100,000 won lol

[SeoulNate]

Shinhan online banking also works very well. If you have a 'premium' account with them (basically just requires you to have your paycheck direct deposited and have a savings account with them) you can get great rates on your dollars and the fee is less than 10,000 won. All you will pay is the wire transfer rate back home.

[weso1]

I have 5 years of experience sending money home. Here is what I do:

-Your bank charges a flat rate. $50-70 bucks depending on what bank you use and the fees on both ends. So sending less than a few hundred over at a time is quite expensive. However, sending a large sum - several thousand or more, is very effective.

-Paypal charges a small percentage fee of the amount you send. So, a few hundred is fine because the charge will only be $5-8 bucks. However, sending over a large sum will be quite expensive.

So, I use my bank to send large sums. For student loans and little things here and there I use this method:

-Set up a pay pal account attached to your American bank. Then, set up a new pay pal account attached to your Korean DEBIT CARD (you can't attach a pay pal to a Korean bank unless you are Korean - but you can attach a Korean bank Visa debit card just fine.) So, now you have two pay pal accounts in your name (with two different emails.) Just send a payment to yourself, accept it, and then withdraw the funds form your account to your bank account.

I've been using this method for a few years and it's flawless. I pay about $6 in pay pal fees per $200 or so. There is no fee when transferring the funds from your account to your bank.

*Note, some will point out that pay pal's exchange rates aren't that great. And when the won is strong against the dollar, they're not. But when the won is trading 1,100 - 1,300 against 1 dollar, the rates are about even. If it ever hits 1,000 - 1 again (or better) then the rates will become a bigger factor.

[oldtactics]

[weso1]

[thegadfly]

[SeoulNate]

OR best option:

Keep the money here if you dont desperately need to pay something off back home. Much better investment options are available here. Hell, just my savings account here is pulling in near 6%.