Singapore Expats

Hi,

I'm just wondering if anyone here has input on the best online money transfer service between Australia and Singapore?

I've been told about a service called Orbitremit - they seem to provide a very competitive rate and a low flat fee compared to the banks.

Has anyone used this service or any other?

I am moving to Singapore in 2 weeks and need to do transfer money to help me survive until my first pay day!

Thanks in advance.

Cheers!

Bring cash. Only need to report if more than S$30,000... and still can bring in... just need to report in excess of S$30K.

I usae Ozforex for moves from the UK to Singapore. Seem pretty good!

How much money would you be transferring?

I am moving from Singapore to Australia on 2nd March. I need to convert my SGD to AUD. If feasible, I am willing to take AUD and give you my SGD. This way, we both can save on exchange rates.

Please pm me.

Thanks.

As Strong Eagle mentioned, bring cash and just declare it if you happen to have (SGD equivalent of) 30k+.

Then change at the moneychangers at Raffles Place for literally the best rates you will ever get.

nutnut wrote:I usae Ozforex for moves from the UK to Singapore. Seem pretty good!

I've used OzForex as well for the same purpose, transfer took less than 48 hours and the rate was certainly better than my bank would offer.

aster wrote:As Strong Eagle mentioned, bring cash and just declare it if you happen to have (SGD equivalent of) 30k+.

Then change at the moneychangers at Raffles Place for literally the best rates you will ever get.

Is the rate there good? I would have thought they weren't?

Not sure if it's 100% related to the topic but I recently brought decent amount of USD into the country and opened Citibank accounts.

The rate Citibank would give me for converting USD to SGD CASH was appalling. Something like 1.22 when Mustafa gave me 1.287. Total difference was enough for me to hop over to Mustafa to change over to SGD and then deposit that into my account. I think electronic transfer rate at Citibank was either same or slightly better than Mustafa's exchange rate which leads me to believe that at least Citibank doesn't want to be in cash exchange business.

I heard I could have gotten a bit more at Chinatown but I didn't want to bother finding them.

Hidy Ho wrote:Not sure if it's 100% related to the topic but I recently brought decent amount of USD into the country and opened Citibank accounts.

The rate Citibank would give me for converting USD to SGD CASH was appalling. Something like 1.22 when Mustafa gave me 1.287. Total difference was enough for me to hop over to Mustafa to change over to SGD and then deposit that into my account. I think electronic transfer rate at Citibank was either same or slightly better than Mustafa's exchange rate which leads me to believe that at least Citibank doesn't want to be in cash exchange business.

I heard I could have gotten a bit more at Chinatown but I didn't want to bother finding them.

Virtually any money changer in town has better rates than the banks.

Ya and I think they wanted to charge me fee to put my USD into my USD account until I gave them the finger so they "waived" it.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Seems like bringing cash and then changing them at Raffles Place / Mustafa is the best way initially.

Cheers!

Hidy Ho wrote:The rate Citibank would give me for converting USD to SGD CASH was appalling. Something like 1.22 when Mustafa gave me 1.287

You never want to change at the "rack" rate with banks. With Citi you need Gold status so that you can then do a currency exchange via your account liason at close to market rates, so maybe like a cent off the mid-rate... not several cents.

Same with HSBC, if you are Premier then you can do a change over the phone at market rates, not horrible rack rates.

But overall some of the best moneychangers have such tight spreads that you cannot beat the value that they offer.