Singapore Expats

Hello All,

I will be relocating to Singapore from New York in two weeks. I currently bank with Wachovia, Merrill Lynch Direct and INGDirect. What would be the best (cost effective) way to transfer funds from USD to SGD or into a USD account in Singapore? I would like to keep my New York account active.

An older thread in the forum mentioned Citi Global Transfer or HSBC Premier - how good are these banks in Singapore? Which one has a better fees/commission structure for funds transfer or forex? Any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Hir0ki

Relocated from California last November.

Looked into Citibank and HSBC. Ended up with the latter. One thing I found out is that regardless of what you do, you cannot directly link your US account with your SG account due to certain US laws that might pertain to money laundering or prevention thereof. I have both US HSBC and ING Direct accounts.

The best way I've found to transfer money cheaply is to wire it into my SG account. Wire transfer fees are a fraction of a %. Of course, you'll have to pay the cost of transfer from your USD account. In my case, it's not too bad with my credit union in the US as their rates reasonable.

You'll find out that the banks will get their money from you somehow, some way. If you directly w/draw or deposit the USD into/from a USD account, there's a fee. If you wire it in, you'll save, but will be charged when you withdraw or lose on the exchange rate when you transfer from your USD account to a linked SG account.

What I did was deposit a relatively large sum of USD to open the account w/c waived the fees. Every month, my company then does a direct deposit of my COLA into my account.

At the end of the day, it's only a few USD each transaction and might not be worth the hassle of "trying to find the best scheme."

Good luck.

you can use a money broker which can give you a better rate and no fees or lower fees than your bank. have a look at www.hifx.com. there are others as well, but hifx has been recommended as a good one.