I hope the use of bitcoin will help these migrant workers to obviate the necessity to patronise the banking institutions. This is becoming very popular in Nigeria and other African countries.
I hope the use of bitcoin will help these migrant workers to obviate the necessity to patronise the banking institutions. This is becoming very popular in Nigeria and other African countries.
I just sent some money to Laos yesterday by Moneygram. I presume it works the same for Cambodia. I used the Moneygram's web and my credit card and everything went smooth and quick. I sent 300 EUR and I had to pay 3.29 EUR as a fee. The official fee was 3,99 EUR but I got a discount of 0,80 EUR for being a returning customer). My friend in Laos received 350,67 USD (he actually received only 350 USD).
The whole account is: I payed 303,29 EUR and he received 350 USD, The final rate is 1,000 EUR = 1,154 USD, just 1,7% more than xe.com (1 EUR = 1,174 USD)
My friend received the money in cash just 1 hour later. I think it is not a bad deal.
christianpfc (October 29th, 2020)
Seems like a good conversion from Eur to USD.Originally Posted by siscu58
Did they actually pay him in USD ?
USD is effectively the currency in Cambodia, since the ATMs issue USD and USD are typically used for most transactions of over $1~2.
However, in Laos, with the exception of hotels catering to tourists, most transactions seem to be in Lao Kip and businesses have become reluctant to accept USD. So I imagine he will have to convert it.
However, I did notice some very low spreads on currency conversion when last in Laos in early 2019.
No. I was wrong. I thought they payed my friend in USD because that is what the website said but in fact they paid in Lao Kip, as you said.
The exchange rate was surprisingly good. For 300 EUR (cost 303,29 EUR) MoneyGram offered 350,67 USD in their web and finally my friend was given 3,490,000 LKP..
This makes the actual rate at 1 EUR = 11,507 LKP (303,29 EUR for 3,490,000 LKP), well over the official exchange rate.
Since the xe.com mid-market exchange rate is 1 EUR = 10,884 LKP,
It makes a very good deal in my opinion.
goji (October 29th, 2020)
Cambodia central bank has just issued their blockchain e-money "Bakong" enabling payments and money transfers to e-wallets, by means of QR codes and phone numbers. Not sure if this digital service is available to foreigners who are not residing in the country. I'm sure you will find more information about the crypto currency in the coming weeks.
I got a reply from transferwise:
Not much wiser. Another point is that a time of 2-5 days was predicted, but the money arrived the following day. And there were no options for quick transfer at higher cost.I've taken a look at your transfer xxxxxx, and can see that your money was sent out via the SWIFT International payment method.
If you send money in a currency that isn't the standard currency for that recipient's country, (in this case sending funds to arrive as USD outside of the US in Cambodia), then a SWIFT transfer is the only option.
When sending money with SWIFT, it moves from the sending bank through several intermediary banks before reaching your recipient's bank, where the money is deposited.
Whilst our own fee will always be visible when you set up your transfer, these intermediary banks have their own, separate fees, so your recipient may get less than you intended. For this reason we will always show you a warning message regarding the possible extra charges.
Unfortunately, there's no way for TransferWise to estimate what this fee will be, in advance. You can read more about using SWIFT here.
goji (October 30th, 2020)
That's interesting, since as we know, the USD is in widespread use in Cambodia & is even issued from bank ATMs.
Checking further, Transferwise have a list of countries that we can send money to via the Transferwise network.
https://transferwise.com/help/articl...-can-i-send-to
Including Thailand & Vietnam, but not Cambodia or Laos.
If we click the link at the bottom of the page on sending USD to countries outside the US, it states that the Swift Network is used and there may be additional fees charged by the receiving bank.
So transfers to anywhere not on their list might get rather expensive.
I had very similar problems when trying to send small amounts of money to Laos and Vietnam. I usually use Transferwise, but a friend was in a place where he couldn't access his bank account so needed to do a cash pickup using his id card. Western Union is usually good for this but I didn't want to pay high WU charges and so after much google searching i came across www.remitly.com . I was very happy with this service and my first transfer was free. Of course, everyone's situation is different but I reccomend having a look at Remitly to see if it suits anyones needs.
christianpfc (November 7th, 2020), goji (November 7th, 2020)
Thank you for posting this.
I checked the "Rates and Fees" page
#1 Their economy fees are £1.99 for recieving in USD and £3.99 for KHR.
#2 The "Rates and Fees" page does NOT tell me what the Rates are. So I need to open an account to find out what the exchange rate is.
From past experience, any provide that requires the customer to open an account BEFORE they tell you what the rates are tends to offer a poor exchange rate. So double dipping with the fees.
What does "free" mean in this instance ? I presume they waived the £1.99 or £3.99 fee, but what about the exchange rate ?
Siscu58 follows best practice (above), since he reports what left one account, what arrived in the other and compares it with XE.com mid market rates, so the total loss on the transaction is clear.
christianpfc (November 7th, 2020), Zebedee (November 7th, 2020)
All the Cambodian boys I know have an SCB account in Thailand that they can use in Cambodia via their ATM card as the SCB owned bank in Cambodia is everywhere. A friend of mine uses Transferwise to send money to the SCB account in Thailand and the boy (currently in Cambodia) just uses his SCB ATM card there for withdrawals.
christianpfc (November 7th, 2020)
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