My adventure opening a bank account at Acleda
Re: My adventure opening a bank account at Acleda
Are you sure about that? ABA Website states Mastercard Standard annual fee is $5 per year., Mastercard Platinum is $20 p/a.
I only pay $5 annual fee for my ABA Classic Visa Debit Card. Visa Platinum Lite is $20, Visa Platinum is $100 p/a.
Visa and Mastercard Virtual Debit Cards are free.
Re: My adventure opening a bank account at Acleda
You can dodge the exchange rates easily. Cambodian banks typically knco you 1.5%, way less than western banks. For example revolut uses mid market rate and right now the exchange rate is $1.28 for £1. ACLEDA is $1.269 so it costs you 1cent to change 1gbp. Natwest in the UK will give you $1.23 so it costs you 5 cents to change 1 GBP! send the money to cambodia in your currency and let the Cambodian bank do the change (these figures were checked as I type this post). Most Cambodian banks will charge you $20 or 0.1% for inward transfers ( you get charged the higher of the 2) unless they have a deal on, which they usually do. Correspondence bank fees charged from uk vary from £20 to £50 depends on what bank you are using. Make sure you give your UK bank a correspondence bankthat your Cambodian bank uses or it may skip through 2. Wells Fargo in new york usually works ok. Expect up to 3 days for the transfer. transfers from Acleda to Uk have, in my experience, arrived in about 36 hours. Bank transfers can be made between cambodian banks but only in riel, ask at the counter. When you open a savings account at ACLEDA you get a proper account in riel and USD. It shows in toanchet, and you have to move money from your toanchet to the USD or Riel account to make payments now. i topped up metfone and it will not let you pay direct from your "savings account with card", you have to move it to USD or KHR account and then pay. this is a recent change. Transferwise will give you a good rate, but their fees for large amounts are high so check the maths before you use them if you are sending $20,000 or more it might be cheaper to send in sterling and let ACLEDA switch it. Finally, check your banks fees. they vary a ot. i have accounts with lloyds in Isle of Man and they do NOT charge any fees other than correespondence bank fees, which are usually $50.clutchcargo wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 6:45 pmAh right thanks. I found that message in the Toanchet notifications. So, Retail Pay>Real Time Fund Transfer>To Bank account>Beneficiary Bank Name> there are 8 banks listed there incl notably..Canadia, Prasac but NOT ABA. I haven't got Internet Banking yet so can't check there but I doubt it would be any more than what the app can do.pczz wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 3:27 am With regard to trnafers to toher banks I have not followed up. last week I got a message through toanchet saying that you could transfer money to other baks using Retail Pay but it did not specify which banks or if there were any charges. if you go to your home page in toan chet and swipe left you will find retail pay. you may have to ask in branch for details
Had another look in the ABA app and you can't transfer to another local bank...neither via their Internet banking. However there's some sort of in branch transfer with a small fee: https://www.ababank.com/domestic-transfers/ I don't know whether Acleda has a similar in branch transfer like that...I'll ask next I go pick up the ATM card.
BTW ABA have a promo of no inward fee Swift transfers from certain countries: https://www.ababank.com/en/promotions/f ... transfers/ however, I imagine there is still the intermediary bank fee and unfavourable exchange rate (altho I haven't compared yet with non bank providers).
Also my ABA gold mastercard costs $15/year (NB classic mastercard/visa cards are $5) but app and internet banking are free. Acleda visa card $6/year, app $6/year, internet banking $6/year.
Get wise, steal your western banks profits. the b@st@rds deserve it
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Re: My adventure opening a bank account at Acleda
Yes, you are right PSD-Kiwi and thanks for picking that up. I've edited my original post to not mislead anyone.PSD-Kiwi wrote: ↑Fri Feb 28, 2020 9:12 pmAre you sure about that? ABA Website states Mastercard Standard annual fee is $5 per year., Mastercard Platinum is $20 p/a.
I only pay $5 annual fee for my ABA Classic Visa Debit Card. Visa Platinum Lite is $20, Visa Platinum is $100 p/a.
Visa and Mastercard Virtual Debit Cards are free.
So I've got a gold mastercard debit card which is now defunct with an annual fee of $15. When I originally opened my account with ABA, I recall now they said they didn't have any stock of the Classic and I'd have to wait 4 weeks for one. Possibly as a sweetener, they offered me the gold card with no annual fee for the first 2yrs and my account confirms this. I was last charged $15 in November and it expires in Nov 21. It has extra benefits but comparing it with the classic, I don't need those. I'll have to go see them about getting it replaced however looking at the original fees leaflet there is a replacement card fee of $10 which they may or may not charge me for changing...I'll have to find out.
Thanks for the heads up.
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Re: My adventure opening a bank account at Acleda
I wonder if my old Acleda eftpos card woukd make it any easier to open a new account? Probably not. But like Duncan I have bugger all money left anyway. If I was transferring money overseas I would use Vespa money changers. Either swap US for Oz dollars at exactly the rate or transfer to your bank at exactly the rate.
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Re: My adventure opening a bank account at Acleda
Someone mentioned ABA transfers, so I will add this .
ABA do a special online transfer service to Philippines (where I'm stuck until can get back to Cambodia) Costs only $10 total and get the pesos in the bank here in one hour at exactly the live rate.
I used the ATM here one time to draw $800, sent to my bank as pesos, cost me $15 from ABA plus lousy exchange rate (approx $20 loss) and 250peso ($5 to use the ATM machine which is every bank ATM) So cost approx $40.
ABA do a special online transfer service to Philippines (where I'm stuck until can get back to Cambodia) Costs only $10 total and get the pesos in the bank here in one hour at exactly the live rate.
I used the ATM here one time to draw $800, sent to my bank as pesos, cost me $15 from ABA plus lousy exchange rate (approx $20 loss) and 250peso ($5 to use the ATM machine which is every bank ATM) So cost approx $40.
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