Bank Fees, communication and Stone the Crows.

[harryopal1]

Doubtless all you older hands ( "older" as in having been in Indonesia for years and years) have already appreciated how banks steal your money.

My wife's daughter has a BCA account and from time to time I have made transfers from my account in Australia to the daughter's account to then give her mother. I have often asked what is the fee BCA charges for handling the transfer? What was the actual amount paid into the account? What was the Exchange rate? My wife invariably doesn't quite understand the questions and neither does the daughter understand her mother and even if she does she really doesn't know the answer. None of this is evasiveness just perfect communication. That is, my wife doesn't understand what I am saying and I don't understand what she is saying so we have perfect communication.

In the absence of information about the transfers, from to time I just go ahead as needed with bank transfers.

Anyway, when transferring funds it is below the compulsory reporting figure in Australia so that I am not badgered with having to explain a perfectly legitimate transaction. I just made a transfer and this time managed to find out what the actual exchange rate was. My wife thought it was good as the amount was a bit more with the recent higher value of the $Aus.

I have just been looking at alternative ways of transferring funds and Transferwise.com seem like the best bet as they would actually transfer Indonesian Rupiah rather than having the bank here do the exchange. Transferwise have good reviews and although the actual transfer fee is a lot more, when it comes to seeing how much comes out the other end.... Stone the Crows! On my last transfer BCA helped themselves to a tidy $987 on their appalling exchange rate so that looking back over transfers this year we have needlessly given BCA about $3400 creamed off the exchange rate.

Interested to know the alternative others have used for transfers.

 

[john madden]

Have a look at kangaroo service

 

[Davita]

I use TransferWise and am very happy with it as you see right away how much will be deposited in the receiving account.

However, I don't think they will transfer IDR OUT but they transfer IN. I just tested and from AUD to IDR if I TX'd today....Net of charges....AUD500 = Rp 5,215,251 and AUD1,000 = IDR10,450,126 and will be received by Thursday.

 

[Bad_azz]

I have usually used Paypal - mainly because it is easy & swift.
Hoping that the cryptocurrencies will be my future mode.

 

[harryopal1]

Ms BA, I had been using Paypal for payments to and from for small commercial items. For money transfers perhaps you can give some examples of from where to where and the amounts with the relative exchange rates if you were bringing in a transfer from an overseas account to an Indonesian account and what the total costs were from Paypal for sending and receiving. (And if you don't provide the information we will ask Mr Pudgy to put you on his target list.)

 

[Bad_azz]

nope- I can't give you all of that info- sorry. Stick me on Mr Pudgy's list.
From UK PP to Indonesian PP to BCA.

I don't say it is cheap because the exchange rate with PP is obviously in their favour. But quick & easy. I found that doing the transfer on a Sunday afternoon/evening & withdrawing to my BCA acct has it arriving around mid-day on Monday. If I do a transfer during the week it can take more than a day to show up.
I guess the Monday morning crew/software assumes the dosh has been sat waiting since Friday & does a speedier withdrawal transfer.

 

[Davita]

Hi B_A...I hope you didn't try to get any cash from BCA/Mandiri ATM's recently and maybe for a while longer....their satellite went down on Friday and most ATM's froze.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/08/28/bca-says-5700-atms-affected-by-satellite-shutdown.html

 

[Jaime C]

I always wire USD, and the incoming wire to Indonesia costs $5 or so. It's going into a USD Indonesian account, thankfully, so no forced currency conversion.

 

[Bad_azz]

Ha! Davita, I wish I had learnt that earlier, tried to pay with my card today. Just went to Mandiri atm instead.

 

[Davita]

Ha! Davita, I wish I had learnt that earlier, tried to pay with my card today. Just went to Mandiri atm instead.

Lucky you...we were in the mall yesterday and paid cash to get a discount on new spectacles so we were cleaned out cash-wise...no problem....around to the ATM....it swallowed my wife's card and didn't give any money.
This was compounded today as we need to be in Jakarta tomorrow (emergency) and the airline wouldn't accept a Credit Card due within 48 hours of the flight...I had to get cash from a fee-pay machine and go to the airport to get the tickets.

 

[steveandpenny]

I have talked about my capital one -360 account before. And am thrilled with it. This is a online account ( I opened it in the United States, dont know if its international or not) . There are no international fees or atm fees. The exchange rate is what ever it is at the moment you withdraw money minus about 50 ruppees so we are getting 13050 if rate is 13100 at the monument. We transfer from one bank in the states to our capital 360 account online and its available in 48 hrs. We than go to any atm ( unsaly bmi) and can withdraw up to 1000 dollars or at today's rate 13.4 million ruppees.

I can do that every 24 hrs or I can call them and arrange a one time withdrawal of 5000 dollars. It works great for us with out wire transfer fees or atm fees.We transfer our pension check this way every month.

I also found if i use the same atm machine we have no problems . We have had a couple of times where they froze the card till we called them when we used a differant bank out of our regular area for a large withdrawal.

I don't know if you are making transfer larger than 1000 u.s. dollars a day and dont know how it would work out for you if you did

 

[harryopal1]

Steve'nPenny,
Sounds like an excellent system I don't believe we have Capital One banks in Aus. As the transfer fee in Aus is $20 for a large or small on line transfer I draw just below the $10,000 mark to last us some while. I think I will be using Transferwise.
And thank you to other respondents for their information. Most appreciated.

 

[steveandpenny]

Like i said its a online bank. They have no brick and mortar banks so you might want to check it out on line. Oops I was wrong again you have to open a account in the United States, Canada, or the U.K. ....they won't open a account from a 3rd world country lik Aus. Sorry just kidding about 3rd world

 

[Euc-]

Lucky you...we were in the mall yesterday and paid cash to get a discount on new spectacles so we were cleaned out cash-wise...no problem....around to the ATM....it swallowed my wife's card and didn't give any money.
This was compounded today as we need to be in Jakarta tomorrow (emergency) and the airline wouldn't accept a Credit Card due within 48 hours of the flight...I had to get cash from a fee-pay machine and go to the airport to get the tickets.

With fee-pay machine you mean an ATM from a different bank and you were charged 6000 IDR?

Could book through tiket.com or traveloka and pay by credit-card even within 48 hours of departure.

 

[Davita]

With fee-pay machine you mean an ATM from a different bank and you were charged 6000 IDR?

Could book through tiket.com or traveloka and pay by credit-card even within 48 hours of departure.

Thanks Euc....should have thought of that.....where were you when I needed you...

As it is we got on the flight earlier, and now in Jakarta, and the nearest BCA/Mandiri ATM will still not permit transferring funds....got to go to HSBC across the street.

edit: looks like BCA/Mandiri have sorted as I noticed those with bank cards issued by them were able to transact on their ATM's.

 

[Jaime C]

Capital One 360 used to be ING Direct, which was European
owned before they sold it. I've had some accounts there for over a decade.

 

[steveandpenny]

This is off subject but we use nusa travel for flights. Not only do they seem to have some of the best prices but I set up a thing called " green lighting " my credit card. This way I can get a flight a half a hour before departure with no problems. No having to wait for card to clear

 

[harryopal1]

For some reason Nusa does not cover Jet Star flights to and from Townsville Qld. The Jetstar prices are less than half the prices Nusa came up with.

 

[Davita]

We than go to any atm ( unsaly bmi) and can withdraw up to 1000 dollars or at today's rate 13.4 million ruppees.

I can do that every 24 hrs or I can call them and arrange a one time withdrawal of 5000 dollars. It works great for us with out wire transfer fees or atm fees.We transfer our pension check this way every month.

Are you saying you can withdraw USD1,000 or do you have to accept the IDR rate that (BMI) gives you?
I thought all bank ATM's were restricted to only providing IDR. I know we used to get USD from our HSBC ATM but that was terminated a few years ago.

 

[R Cameron]

Are you saying you can withdraw USD1,000 or do you have to accept the IDR rate that (BMI) gives you?
I thought all bank ATM's were restricted to only providing IDR. I know we used to get USD from our HSBC ATM but that was terminated a few years ago.

My bank works the same way. He means withdrawing IDR from local ATMs. The amount he can withdraw in a day is limited by his US bank to 1000USD at their current exchange rate (set at the US bank, not the ID bank which owns the ATM). If he has withdrawn 12jt and tries to withdraw 2jt more, the US bank will deny the transaction.