ATMs With High Limits or Money Transfer Into Vietnam?

mtgmike wrote:

My bank in the US added higher per transaction fees recently.  Last week I went to a local ATM the Vietnamese bank had lowered the withdrawal limit to 2,000,000. With the per transaction fees, I lose about 8% on a 2,000,000 withdrawal.

I have a VND account with a Vietnamese bank I used when I taught, but I recall the bank staff telling me I'm not allowed to transfer money into it, only my employer could.

My wife is Vietnamese, could I transfer money from my US bank into her account in Vietnam? 

Are there other services expats prefer to use to transfer money into Vietnam, or ATMs that still allow 8 million+ per withdrawal in HCMC?

I think they meant you cant transfer money into within Vietnam. Overseas transfers are not illegal if done in vnd or setup a usd account and transfer it in that way. I do the same with an aud account.

I have a similar question, but the other way around. What is a good way to regulary transfer money out of Vietnam? Sadly, I discovered that transferwise has not included VN as a possible country to transfer money out.

danrodri wrote:

I have a similar question, but the other way around. What is a good way to regulary transfer money out of Vietnam? Sadly, I discovered that transferwise has not included VN as a possible country to transfer money out.

Not easy but can be done, depends on how much you want to transfer, have you a track where it came from etc etc. There are legit & back door ways to do it.

colinoscapee wrote:

mtgmike wrote:

My bank in the US added higher per transaction fees recently.  Last week I went to a local ATM the Vietnamese bank had lowered the withdrawal limit to 2,000,000. With the per transaction fees, I lose about 8% on a 2,000,000 withdrawal.

I have a VND account with a Vietnamese bank I used when I taught, but I recall the bank staff telling me I'm not allowed to transfer money into it, only my employer could.

My wife is Vietnamese, could I transfer money from my US bank into her account in Vietnam? 

Are there other services expats prefer to use to transfer money into Vietnam, or ATMs that still allow 8 million+ per withdrawal in HCMC?

I think they meant you cant transfer money into within Vietnam. Overseas transfers are not illegal if done in vnd or setup a usd account and transfer it in that way. I do the same with an aud account.

I regularly Transfer USD into Vietnam USD account. My Vietnamese bank card also allows 10 mil withdrawals, just did it today.

danrodri wrote:

I have a similar question, but the other way around. What is a good way to regulary transfer money out of Vietnam? Sadly, I discovered that transferwise has not included VN as a possible country to transfer money out.

Money sent out has to be proven with pay slips, tax receipts or a papertrail of any monies previously sent to VN. The commies like money to come in, but not out.

mtgmike wrote:

My bank in the US added higher per transaction fees recently.  Last week I went to a local ATM the Vietnamese bank had lowered the withdrawal limit to 2,000,000. With the per transaction fees, I lose about 8% on a 2,000,000 withdrawal.

I have a VND account with a Vietnamese bank I used when I taught, but I recall the bank staff telling me I'm not allowed to transfer money into it, only my employer could.

My wife is Vietnamese, could I transfer money from my US bank into her account in Vietnam? 

Are there other services expats prefer to use to transfer money into Vietnam, or ATMs that still allow 8 million+ per withdrawal in HCMC?

You should be able to transfer money to your wife if you have the Swift Code of her bank and her account number and her account name.

However, many banks transfer in US dollars only (Schwab domestic accounts, for instance) and so she should receive a notice that there is a wire transfer received, but she'll need to go to the bank and exchange it into Vietnam dong and then deposit it or take the money with her.

That's how it works at ACB Bank, as recently as this summer.

mtgmike wrote:

My bank in the US added higher per transaction fees recently.  Last week I went to a local ATM the Vietnamese bank had lowered the withdrawal limit to 2,000,000. With the per transaction fees, I lose about 8% on a 2,000,000 withdrawal.

Switch to Charles Schwab.  Many American expats use CS solely for all money matters, meaning we don't have Vietnamese account and we don't use money transfer. 

- CS doesn't belong to any ATM network but it reimburses all the ATM fees which other banks charge you.
- CS allows $1000 withdrawal per day.  Of course you can't even get half of that with ATM here, but you can have one transaction after another until reaching the amount you wish to have.  No worry about fees, remember?
- CS exchange rate is excellent, better than all the banks, better than gold shops, better than anything you can find in VN.

If my spouse were Vietnamese and I wanted to transfer money to his account, I would've used ATM to withdraw $1000 each day and given him the cash.  No muss, no fuss.

HSBC and Citibank have the highest.  HSBC is 5 mil and Citibank was 8, not sure have not used them for awhile.  When arriving at TSN there are Citibank atm so you can pull a decent amount before exiting.

Citi has the advantage of free transfers between US Citi accounts and VN Citi.  The downside is that their conversion rates are not good.  Also you can use a Citi US debit card directly in a Citi VN ATM.  I did so once many years ago but I honestly don't remember about ATM fees and exchange rates.  I expect they were not good.

Ciambella wrote:

mtgmike wrote:

My bank in the US added higher per transaction fees recently.  Last week I went to a local ATM the Vietnamese bank had lowered the withdrawal limit to 2,000,000. With the per transaction fees, I lose about 8% on a 2,000,000 withdrawal.

Switch to Charles Schwab.  Many American expats use CS solely for all money matters, meaning we don't have Vietnamese account and we don't use money transfer. 

- CS doesn't belong to any ATM network but it reimburses all the ATM fees which other banks charge you.
- CS allows $1000 withdrawal per day.  Of course you can't even get half of that with ATM here, but you can have one transaction after another until reaching the amount you wish to have.  No worry about fees, remember?
- CS exchange rate is excellent, better than all the banks, better than gold shops, better than anything you can find in VN.

If my spouse were Vietnamese and I wanted to transfer money to his account, I would've used ATM to withdraw $1000 each day and given him the cash.  No muss, no fuss.

I love my Schwab account & I am not US citizen. Nothing that I know of beats their deal. I would also add they wire transfer USD into my Vietnamese USD account with no fee their end.

mtgmike wrote:

My bank in the US added higher per transaction fees recently.  Last week I went to a local ATM the Vietnamese bank had lowered the withdrawal limit to 2,000,000. With the per transaction fees, I lose about 8% on a 2,000,000 withdrawal.

I have a VND account with a Vietnamese bank I used when I taught, but I recall the bank staff telling me I'm not allowed to transfer money into it, only my employer could.

My wife is Vietnamese, could I transfer money from my US bank into her account in Vietnam? 

Are there other services expats prefer to use to transfer money into Vietnam, or ATMs that still allow 8 million+ per withdrawal in HCMC?

Rather then standing in front of a ATM machine and doing multiple trans actions just go inside the bank, hand them your card and tell them how much you want. Cost wise it works out to be the same as the ATM, just quicker and safer, and the limit is what ever it is on your card.
Rick.

Budman1 wrote:

mtgmike wrote:

My bank in the US added higher per transaction fees recently.  Last week I went to a local ATM the Vietnamese bank had lowered the withdrawal limit to 2,000,000. With the per transaction fees, I lose about 8% on a 2,000,000 withdrawal.

I have a VND account with a Vietnamese bank I used when I taught, but I recall the bank staff telling me I'm not allowed to transfer money into it, only my employer could.

My wife is Vietnamese, could I transfer money from my US bank into her account in Vietnam? 

Are there other services expats prefer to use to transfer money into Vietnam, or ATMs that still allow 8 million+ per withdrawal in HCMC?

Rather then standing in front of a ATM machine and doing multiple trans actions just go inside the bank, hand them your card and tell them how much you want. Cost wise it works out to be the same as the ATM, just quicker and safer, and the limit is what ever it is on your card.
Rick.

& the bonus in doing that is you get to eye up all the hot girl bank tellers or boys if thats your preference.

Budman1 wrote:

Rather then standing in front of a ATM machine and doing multiple trans actions just go inside the bank, hand them your card and tell them how much you want. Cost wise it works out to be the same as the ATM, just quicker and safer, and the limit is what ever it is on your card.
Rick.

Doesn't work that way with Schwab.  Besides, it costs nothing to withdraw money from a Schwab account so the two are not comparable.

For Ocean Bank they don't ask for my card for an in-lobby withdrawl, only my passport.  That said, if I forget my passport I need to take it out of the ATM with my card.  Why I can take it out of the ATM with my card but an in-person transaction in the lobby requires my passport?  Oh, well, I deal with it.  They also ask that I give them 24 hours notice when withdrawing more than 1B in cash.  Apparently the satellite branches don't keep a lot of cash on hand and they have to send it from the main branch. 

The thing I really like about Ocean Bank is they are essentially a commercial bank.  They don't do a lot of retail banking which cuts down on in-person traffic.  Whenever I walk in there is never a wait.  I've never waited behind even one person.  They remember my name even when I go in and that's generally less than one time a month.  I've gone to Sacombank and Agribank with my wife and generally you have to take a number and wait.

They will increase my per-ATM withdrawl limit again if I ask them to.  It's 10,000,000 now.

SteinNebraska wrote:

For Ocean Bank they don't ask for my card for an in-lobby withdrawl, only my passport.  That said, if I forget my passport I need to take it out of the ATM with my card.  Why I can take it out of the ATM with my card but an in-person transaction in the lobby requires my passport?  Oh, well, I deal with it.  They also ask that I give them 24 hours notice when withdrawing more than 1B in cash.  Apparently the satellite branches don't keep a lot of cash on hand and they have to send it from the main branch. 

The thing I really like about Ocean Bank is they are essentially a commercial bank.  They don't do a lot of retail banking which cuts down on in-person traffic.  Whenever I walk in there is never a wait.  I've never waited behind even one person.  They remember my name even when I go in and that's generally less than one time a month.  I've gone to Sacombank and Agribank with my wife and generally you have to take a number and wait.

They will increase my per-ATM withdrawl limit again if I ask them to.  It's 10,000,000 now.

I have never ever had to take number & wait at Sacombank, straight to my relationship manager 5 minutes & as much free candy I can stuff in my pocket, job done. That is providing a Vietnamese customer does not distract her by sitting down next to me, trying to check out what she is doing for me & then trying to get her to do their business first of course!!

goodolboy wrote:

I have never ever had to take number & wait at Sacombank, straight to my relationship manager 5 minutes & as much free candy I can stuff in my pocket, job done. That is providing a Vietnamese customer does not distract her by sitting down next to me, trying to check out what she is doing for me & then trying to get her to do their business first of course!!

Me too.  I mean all of the above also happened to me during the months I had an account with Sacombank, including the candies and the Nosey Parkers who didn't just want to have their business done in tandem with mine, but also wanted to know all about my marriage.  They wanted to know how my husband treated me, if my children were beautiful due to their being Eurasian, how much his pension was, how much our rent was, how much we saved each month, etc.)  Some of them also told me I needed to lose weight to hold on to my spouse -- I wore size XS in America, and as we've been married for longer than a quarter of a century, if I still had to think about holding on to him then there's something seriously wrong with him, not my very acceptable weight!

We've lived in several countries where privacy was not sacred, but nothing could compare to the Vietnamese "curiosity".

Fortunately I've never endured any of the "curiosity" by Vietnamese.  Probably because I don't speak it and her family has never asked me about my finances.  I've never experienced "how much do you make?" or anything along those lines. 

From a business standpoint I think because most of the people that I deal with are owners and managers and everyone assumes everyone is make a decent living.  I think when they all get to a certain point does it really matter if it is 300M or 400M or 500M per month?  It's more than enough so why discuss it?

I probably should ask Ciambella to give me the coarse language translation of "none of your damn business" to have just in case but knowing me and my poor history with Vietnamese phrases I'd forget the phrase before I ever had a chance to use it.

Have you look into Tranferwise or services similar to it? It's pretty fast and you can have the money brought to your house. That's what I used to send money to my dad. Looking at their website, it shows that if I send $1000, the money will arrive in 3 hours and the fee is $12.76 which is a little over 1%. There is a transfer limit of $2999 per month.

qnbui wrote:

Have you look into Tranferwise or services similar to it? It's pretty fast and you can have the money brought to your house. That's what I used to send money to my dad. Looking at their website, it shows that if I send $1000, the money will arrive in 3 hours and the fee is $12.76 which is a little over 1%. There is a transfer limit of $2999 per month.

You can do US to Vietnam but not Vietnam to US.  I have used them several times to send to my bank in VN.  They did just institue a limit recently.  The last time I sent $50,000 to Vietnam they limited me to 10,000 per transaction so I had to send 5 separate transfers.  This was about six months ago.  Previously I sent $50,000 and they let me send it in one transfer.  I don't know if it was for a government reason or to just generate more fees but two years ago it wasn't a problem.

Ciambella wrote:

goodolboy wrote:

I have never ever had to take number & wait at Sacombank, straight to my relationship manager 5 minutes & as much free candy I can stuff in my pocket, job done. That is providing a Vietnamese customer does not distract her by sitting down next to me, trying to check out what she is doing for me & then trying to get her to do their business first of course!!

Me too.  I mean all of the above also happened to me during the months I had an account with Sacombank, including the candies and the Nosey Parkers who didn't just want to have their business done in tandem with mine, but also wanted to know all about my marriage.  They wanted to know how my husband treated me, if my children were beautiful due to their being Eurasian, how much his pension was, how much our rent was, how much we saved each month, etc.)  Some of them also told me I needed to lose weight to hold on to my spouse -- I wore size XS in America, and as we've been married for longer than a quarter of a century, if I still had to think about holding on to him then there's something seriously wrong with him, not my very acceptable weight!

We've lived in several countries where privacy was not sacred, but nothing could compare to the Vietnamese "curiosity".

nice to know it even happens to you too!! "Nosey Parkers" is such a good description. I sort of miss hearing these terms/descriptions used. What's the Vietnamese equivalent ?

talking about banks: I need to open two bank accounts as I will be earning mone here in VN. One USD and one Dong account. Any ideas which banks are good on their fees and convenient? Three things are key for me:
1. low maintenance fees (banks earn enough, no need to feed them with our hard earned bucks)
2. Low fees on international bank transfers OUT of VN.
3. good coverage of ATM's countrywise
Any ideas? Appreciate it

danrodri wrote:

2. Low fees on international bank transfers OUT of VN.

Good luck with the OUT aspect.  Plan to keep exact records of all inbound transfers as well as income tax receipts for all income earned in Vietnam. 

As far as having good national ATM coverage, cooperative agreements between banks within Vietnam for no-fee ATM usage could be just as important as the actual number and location of a bank's branded ATM's.

SteinNebraska wrote:

I probably should ask Ciambella to give me the coarse language translation of "none of your damn business" to have just in case but knowing me and my poor history with Vietnamese phrases I'd forget the phrase before I ever had a chance to use it.

I can't say anything coarse in Vietnamese, truly I can't.  My father always spoke properly and I was taught every day for 15+ years to do the same.  Ask me to be sarcastic in English and I can do it without thinking, but when I speak Vietnamese, everyone knows I'm stuck in the era when people were utmost courteous to one another.

I do know a few cutting sentences from the South, one of which is flippant but straight to the point and funny at the same time:

"Mắc mớ gì tới bà không mà hỏi?"  (I use "bà" because men don't usually sticking their noses in other people's business.)  It's a coarse version of "What does that have anything to do with you?"

The best thing about that sentence is that it can be delivered any which way. When being said with an aggressive tone (often expected), it's enough to start a verbal brawl. But when being said with a straight face and expressionless tone, it can shut the other person up so fast because she wouldn't know how to react, and that's the funny part of it.

Ciambella wrote:

"Mắc mớ gì tới bà không mà hỏi?"  (I use "bà" because men don't usually sticking their noses in other people's business.)

They do when a foreigner is accomplished by a Vietnamese woman

Taxi drivers are the worst.

If I get in a cab with a Vietnamese woman and the driver starts a conversation with them, I have learned to expect that the subject is me.

Unfortunately because of traditional customs, the women are often reluctant to tell the man to mind his own business.

Even though the guy is a total stranger to both of us, they sometimes feel compelled to tell him things like where I'm from and how old I am.

OceanBeach92107 wrote:

They do when a foreigner is accomplished by a Vietnamese woman

Autospeller strikes again.   

Thanks for the advice.  I contacted my bank in the US, and they do not allow online international transfers.   They told me I need to visit a US branch in person to arrange an international wire transfer.

I will look into Transferwise, it sounds promising.

My bank does allow domestic transfers online.  If you go to HSBC here in HCMC, can you set up a domestic US account?  Is it possible to set up an account remotely at any of these bigger banks that operate in the US and internationally?  I need a bank with a US domestic routing number to use my bank's online transfer service.

I'm not familiar with Schwab or brokerage accounts.

mtgmike wrote:

I'm not familiar with Schwab or brokerage accounts.

What we use is Schwab's banking side of the business, not the brokerage side.  They do require everyone to open a brokerage account in tandem with the checking/saving account, but there's no minimum requirement. We opened it with $1 and the balance is still $1 many years later.

The checking account is the same as with all other checking account everywhere else.

mtgmike wrote:

I will look into Transferwise, it sounds promising.

My bank does allow domestic transfers online.

These two statements are why it will work in the near term to send money here.  My small town bank won't do international wire transfers, either.

You set up the transfer with Transferwise and they give you a sheet to give or send to your bank with a code, address, routing information.  Then your bank makes a domestic transfer to the Transferwise location in the US in US funds.  They then change the funds to VND and transfer those to your bank in Vietnam.

They charge about 1-2% depeiding on the size of the transfer but it's not bad overall since their exchange is at the intra-day trading rate which is better than you will get from your bank or your VN bank.

I've done probaly 10 transfers with them.  It's gone well except for the last one because it was a larger transfer.  They kept asking for more documentation like passport, reason, some other proof documents.  Not a big deal but they kept asking for them one after another after each was received and with the time change I lost a day between each one so that transfer took close to a week.  Plus I had to break it up into five $10,000 transfers.  Everything else has been 24-48 hours.

Also, one of your original questions - yes you can transfer from your US account to your VN VND account or your wifes VN account through Transferwise.  They really don't care who you are sending it to as long as the routing info is correct.

Ciambella wrote:

mtgmike wrote:

I'm not familiar with Schwab or brokerage accounts.

What we use is Schwab's banking side of the business, not the brokerage side.  They do require everyone to open a brokerage account in tandem with the checking/saving account, but there's no minimum requirement. We opened it with $1 and the balance is still $1 many years later.

The checking account is the same as with all other checking account everywhere else.

When I do an international transfer with Schwab, the money has to be transferred from my checking account into the brokerage account, which is where they transfer the funds from

I tried Transferwise, just $100 USD to test it out.  Everything went smooth on the Transferwise side, the money was converted from USD to VND, then sent to Vietcombank.  Vietcombank rejected the transfer and sent it back.  All of the transfer details appear to be correct.  I tried again with the surname last, but it was still rejected.

I called Vietcombank today.  None of the customer service representatives I spoke to know what Transferwise is.  They can't reference the transaction and told me to check with Transferwise and make sure they can do business with Vietcombank.

When I set up the transfer with Transferwise they actually had Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam selectable in a drop down box of Vietnamese banks. 

My wife also uses Vietcombank.  If Vietcombank won't accept transferwise I'll have to open an account at another bank.  What banks in Vietnam have you had success transferring to with Transferwise?

Edit:  I wasn't asked for any further documentation or given any reason, just emailed by Transferwise: "Your transfer of 2,228,287 VND was sent back to us." and "Your bank has returned your money to us again. So we've had to give you a refund. "

mtgmike wrote:

I tried Transferwise, just $100 USD to test it out.  Everything went smooth on the Transferwise side, the money was converted from USD to VND, then sent to Vietcombank.  Vietcombank rejected the transfer and sent it back.  All of the transfer details appear to be correct.  I tried again with the surname last, but it was still rejected.

I called Vietcombank today.  None of the customer service representatives I spoke to know what Transferwise is.  They can't reference the transaction and told me to check with Transferwise and make sure they can do business with Vietcombank.

When I set up the transfer with Transferwise they actually had Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam selectable in a drop down box of Vietnamese banks. 

My wife also uses Vietcombank.  If Vietcombank won't accept transferwise I'll have to open an account at another bank.  What banks in Vietnam have you had success transferring to with Transferwise?

Edit:  I wasn't asked for any further documentation or given any reason, just emailed by Transferwise: "Your transfer of 2,228,287 VND was sent back to us." and "Your bank has returned your money to us again. So we've had to give you a refund. "

https://portal.vietcombank.com.vn/Perso … el=default

Transferwise isn't listed.

Rick

My transfers have only been to Sacombank and Ocean Bank thus far.

Budman1 wrote:

https://portal.vietcombank.com.vn/Personal/MoneyTransfer/CVNTKH/Pages/Nhan-tien-chuyen-tu-nuoc-ngoai-ve-Viet-Nam.aspx?devicechannel=default

Transferwise isn't listed.

Rick

The very first picture link is about the fact that Vietcombank has SWIFT transfers.  Per Google translate this seems to imply money can come from anywhere:

"Swift is the oldest and most popular interbank money transfer channel (transferring money from bank to bank) in the world. 
With a worldwide network of agent relationships, Vietcombank will help customers in Vietnam receive money transferred from anywhere in the world at reasonable cost."

Does Transferwise use the SWIFT system or does it circumvent it?

Budman1 wrote:

mtgmike wrote:

I tried Transferwise, just $100 USD to test it out.  Everything went smooth on the Transferwise side, the money was converted from USD to VND, then sent to Vietcombank.  Vietcombank rejected the transfer and sent it back.  All of the transfer details appear to be correct.  I tried again with the surname last, but it was still rejected.

I called Vietcombank today.  None of the customer service representatives I spoke to know what Transferwise is.  They can't reference the transaction and told me to check with Transferwise and make sure they can do business with Vietcombank.

When I set up the transfer with Transferwise they actually had Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam selectable in a drop down box of Vietnamese banks. 

My wife also uses Vietcombank.  If Vietcombank won't accept transferwise I'll have to open an account at another bank.  What banks in Vietnam have you had success transferring to with Transferwise?

Edit:  I wasn't asked for any further documentation or given any reason, just emailed by Transferwise: "Your transfer of 2,228,287 VND was sent back to us." and "Your bank has returned your money to us again. So we've had to give you a refund. "

https://portal.vietcombank.com.vn/Perso … el=default

Transferwise isn't listed.

Rick

Here is the direct English language link

https://portal.vietcombank.com.vn/en-Us … el=default

Yry sending it to your wifes account using Transferwise, it may work. The banking system is very negative towards anything or anyone not Vietnamese.

My wife can send money of of VN using a Permanent Residence visa, doesnt have to show where the money came from. Me, I have all the bank transfers of 13 years showing money brought into VN, but they want me to show a papertrail of how that money was used. Basically, VN banking sucks big time.

I initiated a Transferwise transfer to my wife's account.  Within 30 minutes she got a notification that the money was deposited into her account.  It took 1-2 hours for the transfers I tried to send to myself to bounce back to me.  There are no records of any transactions listed for my account.  I'll try sending to my account again.  Both of us have separate Vietcombank VND accounts.  Maybe there is a restriction on my account as a foreigner.

I didn't think that the VN banking rules allowed a direct transfer of funds to an account if it's in the name of the person who's also sending the money. You can do it in other places but I don't think so to VN.

Budman1 wrote:

I didn't think that the VN banking rules allowed a direct transfer of funds to an account if it's in the name of the person who's also sending the money. You can do it in other places but I don't think so to VN.

In fact, that is always a tricky thing to do. If possible, always transfer to your own account name. Btw. Transferwise works wonders.