I bank with Charter One here in Indy - it's a small bank but has pretty good customer service. The problem is that this bank is really a local bank owned by a big bank (RBS), and outside of normal local banking stuff they seem to try to rip people off...

I transferred some money over to an account I have in Hong Kong. Charter One charges me $30 to do that. When I checked my HSBC account in HK, it tells me I have about $31 LESS than what I transferred. HSBC charges HKD$50 (less than 7 bucks) for incoming wire, so my question is what the hell happened to my other $25? I called up HSBC and they tell me that the "remittance bank" charged me $25 but they don't know who the remittance bank was.

My question is: is my bank the remittance bank? If not why not and why didn't somebody tell me there's a charge THERE? I feel like I've been ripped off!

 

I too would like to know the answer to the question you have. Banks at both ends charged me around US $20 for a wire transfer I did some time ago.

It was from HSBC to some bank in West lafayette, IN !

 

It has been a while since I worked in our FX department but I recall it working something like this....

You have US$ @ Charter One in Indy. You want HK$ @ HSBC in HK.

You didn't indicate where the FX conversion took place, so I'll assume you converted US$ to HK$ @ Charter One and are looking to remit HK$.

Charter One, in all likelihood does not have a relationship with HSBC in HK. Bank to bank transfers just don't 'happen', the banks must have a working relationship. Charter One has to get your HK$ to HK - - - in order to do that, they would work with a correspondent bank who can do bank to bank tranfers with HSBC in HK. The correspndent bank is most likely a large money center bank (Citi, Chase, BofA, etc). They are the 'remitter' referenced in your original post.

So you pay a fee to Charter One (outgoing wire), Bank XYZ as the correspondent and HSBC (incoming wire).

Hope that helps and your correct, it is a scam since it is all electronic and costs about 20cents to do an actual transfer given the volumes.

 

Update: I called both HSBC & Charter One to complain about this, looks like what happened was there was some kind of intermediary bank - in this case American Express - that charged a $25 fee. My wire transfer was done in US Dollars both ways, no exchange to HK$ because Charter one was giving me a rate of 1USD to 7.26HKD vs. what I get in the HK hotel which was 1USD to 7.78HKD - talk about a rip off.

 

yea, the process is standard; however, if u have a big enough account u can usually get some of the fees waived or lowered, but u gotta be a big timer aka the bank is making money off u in some otherway. Yea it costs 20 electronically, however, u must pay the persons to fill out the necessary forms and such. A lot of international wires are usually acompanied by letters of credit, so things like cargo manifestos need to be verified, and all docs need to be in place... cuz onces that money is gone its gone...price of international bidness