Minimize forex and bank fees with Wise - International Funds Transfer, Multi Currency Account, and International Debit Card!
When sending money or travelling to other countries, we tend to lose money to banks or money changers when exchanging our Ringgit to a foreign currency, and also when swiping our Malaysian credit or debit card overseas. When we use our cards overseas, the exchange rates on those transactions are often worse than the money changer's rates, and some banks impose additional conversion fees.
To start off, Wise Payments Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. is regulated under the laws of Malaysia by the Bank Negara Malaysia as a licensed remittance, money-changing and e-money issuance business. I've personally used Wise for more than 10 years now, and this post shares how Wise helps you in each of the below scenarios:
- Send and receive money from other countries (foreign currency exchange - forex)
- Store money in 50+ other currencies (multi-currency account)
- Spend money in other countries (international Visa debit card)
Let's go through these scenarios one by one.
1. International Funds Transfers
If you sign-up for a free Wise account using a referral, your first funds transfer is also completely free (zero fees) for up to USD$600. This translates to a savings of anywhere between RM15 to RM35 in fees. You can transfer more than $600 in your first transfer, just that the excess balance will incur standard fees, which is still competitive.
The mid-market rates you get on Wise, when without fees, are by far the best rate you will ever find in the market, guaranteed. This is because that is the mid-point rate between the buy and sell prices of a currency with zero spread, i.e. you can buy a currency and then sell it back, and not lose a single sen.
Here a a few additional tips - the larger sum of money you transfer on Wise, the cheaper the transaction becomes. Also, I have found that Wise allows me to transfer funds from any of their supported countries, instead of limiting the origin to my registered home country, unlike Instarem or Western Union. This is great for those of us who have bank accounts overseas e.g. in the U.K., Singapore, or Australia, and want to remit funds back into Malaysia. Another point to note is that Malaysians are only allowed to send a maximum of RM30,000 per day, which could be a concern if you're looking to move large sums of money, e.g. RM200,000.
Opening a Wise account is absolutely free, of course.
More info and referral link here - https://wise.com/invite/ata/meec71
2. Multi-Currency Accounts
More recently, Wise has also launched international multi-currency accounts, which allows us to store our money in 50+ other currencies, enabling us to hedge against currency fluctuations, or an ever depreciating Ringgit. In fact, you can do a lot more than that. With Wise, you can:
- Send money from your foreign currency account
- Receive foreign currency into your Wise account via local bank transfers in 10 currencies
- Spend your foreign currency in their local country, e.g. spend your EUR in Europe
We will cover #3 below, but the real highlight here is the multi currency account facility, which you get absolutely free. For Malaysians, our Wise currency account can hold up to RM20,000 (across all currency accounts) at any time. What's even more impressive is the fact that 10 of these currency accounts come with local account details to easily receive money overseas, without us ever having to actually travel to that country and open a bank account. Wise support local accounts for 10 major currencies, including the MYR, USD, Euro, GBP, SGD, and AUD.
Imagine this - a Malaysian who has never visited Australia or opened a bank account in Australia, can just open a Wise account online for free, and have account details for any Australian to transfer Australian dollars from their local bank to us. When that Aussie completes their funds transfer, almost instantly the money appears in our Wise account, and we can either:
- Park it there in Wise in AUD,
- convert it to another currency,
- transfer it to any bank in the 80+ countries supported by Wise (including Malaysia), or
- spend it (and we'll cover this in Section #3 below)
The person sending you money does not need to be tech savvy or understand Wise, or even be aware of this app. All they need to know is your name and bank details to send or pay you money. Having said that, there are some limitations - Wise does not allow the use or transfer of funds for cryptocurrencies. Also, such funds transfers supported by Wise are limited to banks, meaning investment houses, stock brokerages, pension funds, etc., will not be able to remit funds to your Wise currency account.
The downside of holding money in these currency accounts, is that you will not gain any interest from them, as these aren't interest-bearing bank accounts. If you've been following this blog, you'll know that you can get up to 4% interest from parking your idle cash on other cash management fund platforms or conditional yield savings accounts in Malaysia.
Verdict - having a local bank account in 10 different countries to receive local payments is a game-changer. Being able to receive money instantly in most cases, and have it subsequently remitted anywhere else in the world at competitive rates, and all done within the same Wise app, is extremely convenient.
You can get your Wise multi currency account for free by signing-up to Wise.
3. Wise Visa Debit Card (Malaysia)
Wise also allows you to withdraw your funds out of your Wise account from ATMs, both in Malaysia and internationally, as long as they support the Visa network. In Malaysia, you get 2 free withdrawals of up to RM1,000 per withdrawal, each month. Anything above that will start incurring fees, at RM5 per withdrawal plus a 1.75% fee from the total withdrawal amount. The same applies overseas, but note that foreign banks may impose their own bank charges for using their ATM services. This is known to be the case in Thailand and Vietnam.
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