DBS Multi-currency

[DreamerChin]

Hi
Does anyone here knows how to withdraw cash via Australia Westpac ATM using our eMCA debit card? I have tried using it with the 3 options to select: Cheque , Saving & Credit, and I have selected "Saving", it will withdraw cash from my secondary account wallet instead of the eMCA. So I tried select "Credit"the ATM decline me from withdrawing. Please advise and help what could it be the problem? Thanks

 

[yumyumz]

Yes. That is one of the most common use of the MCA. However, note that if your MCA is the DBS multiplier account, the amounts in foreign currency will not get the bonus interest, only get the small % of interest depending on the currency.

how to use multiplier as MCA account?

 

[Charlie_Zhan]

Hi
Does anyone here knows how to withdraw cash via Australia Westpac ATM using our eMCA debit card? I have tried using it with the 3 options to select: Cheque , Saving & Credit, and I have selected "Saving", it will withdraw cash from my secondary account wallet instead of the eMCA. So I tried select "Credit"the ATM decline me from withdrawing. Please advise and help what could it be the problem? Thanks

emca = current account

Sent from International Space Station using GAGT

 

[Trazora]

how to use multiplier as MCA account?

dbs multiplier account itself is a MCA

 

[vddgnd]

Sorry can't find the citibank Global Foreign currency account thread, so post question here.

If open MaxiGain account with initial $15k, can open citibank Global Foreign currency account with zero deposit and not incur fall below fee?

Purpose of open citibank Global Foreign currency account is to receive dividend from oversea share (in Euro). Currently the dividend is deposited into POSB acc. (not Multiplier acc) and auto converted into SGD before inward remittance and Citibank is the intermediate bank in this transaction.

I am thinking of open a citibank Global Foreign currency account to receive this dividend since it is a intermediate bank and the inward remittances is free.

May I have your advices?

 

[chopra]

one of better multi curr acct

 

[helloworld321]

can u deposit foreign currency into multi-currency account or withdraw foreign currency in singapore?

 

[dreant]

can u deposit foreign currency into multi-currency account or withdraw foreign currency in singapore?

Yes, you can. Only notes (no coins). There is no fee if you deposit into/withdraw from a different currency account; the fee to deposit/withdraw into the same currency account depends on the currency (between 1.5% to 5.0%, with a minimum charge of SGD10).

DBS: Deposits guide.

 

[helloworld321]

Yes, you can. Only notes (no coins). There is no fee if you deposit into/withdraw from a different currency account; the fee to deposit/withdraw into the same currency account depends on the currency (between 1.5% to 5.0%, with a minimum charge of SGD10).

DBS: Deposits guide.

10 dollar seems steep.. seems like it's cheaper to deposit my money into chase and transfer to dbs.

 

[Sutcliffe]

Hi all,

I will be going to Australia for a short 3 months secondment. Will like to understand if MCA will be a good choice for me?

I should convert maybe 3/4 of my expected expenses into AUD and keep in the MCA account for payments using debit card.

For the remaining 1/4, I should convert to AUD cash and bring it physically to AUD as any withdrawl via ATM in australia will incur commission charges even though there might be no withdrawl charges?

Is that right? Thanks.

 

[Charlie_Zhan]

Hi all,

I will be going to Australia for a short 3 months secondment. Will like to understand if MCA will be a good choice for me?

I should convert maybe 3/4 of my expected expenses into AUD and keep in the MCA account for payments using debit card.

For the remaining 1/4, I should convert to AUD cash and bring it physically to AUD as any withdrawl via ATM in australia will incur commission charges even though there might be no withdrawl charges?

Is that right? Thanks.

"If your MCA is linked as the primary account to your DBS Visa Debit Card, purchases made in foreign currencies and overseas ATM cash withdrawals will be automatically deducted from your respective foreign currency wallet(s) at no foreign exchange conversion fees."

"There will be no foreign exchange conversion fees and no additional administrative fees at purchase. Similarly, for overseas ATM cash withdrawals, you will be able to withdraw foreign currency funds directly from the respective foreign currency wallet(s) in your MCA Account."

"Are there any fees when I transact in foreign currency using my MCA-linked DBS Visa Debit Card?

There will not be any additional foreign currency conversion fees for your point-of-sale or online purchases and overseas cash withdrawals directly debited from your foreign currency wallets.

For overseas ATM cash withdrawals, DBS ATM fees will be waived for:
DBS Treasures / Treasures Private Client / Private Bank Visa Debit Cards
Withdrawals made using DBS cards at DBS ATMs overseas and Westpac Group ATMs in Australia (Westpac, St. George Bank, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA)"

sauce - https://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/deposits/savings-accounts/dbs-multi-currency-autosave/mca-visa-debit-faq.page

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[xsoldix]

Dont forget fall below fee if <S$3k.

6months before can close without fees if im not wrong.

So good to keep at least $3k inside if u want to keep the account.

Posted with fingers HardwareZone Forums app

 

[Charlie_Zhan]

Dont forget fall below fee if <S$3k.

6months before can close without fees if im not wrong.

So good to keep at least $3k inside if u want to keep the account.

Posted with fingers HardwareZone Forums app

close account within 6mth from opening date will incur an early account closure fee of $30

Sent from International Space Station using GAGT

 

[kapuliko]

hi guys,

first of all, sorry if what i post later is a repeat qns/has been answered before, would appreciate if i can be pointed to it.

i created a MCA (DBS eMulti-Currency Autosave Account) back in March because I would be going to Japan for a year (for studies) and back then I was not able to confirm if I can open a japan bank account, thus i called up the bank and was offered this option.

Without giving it much thought, I created the MCA and immediately transferred S$3,000 into the Yen wallet, since S$3,000 would be the minimum amount to maintain in the account.

what happened next surprised me, the value of the $3,000 i transferred became $2,925, which I understand would be the value of the Yen wallet. I obviously expected some sort of charges would occur but I didn't expect it to be of such a huge sum.

I then realise also that this value would not meet the minimum amt required to maintain the account, I confirmed this with the DBS staff via real-time chat because I was already in Japan then. I proceeded to transfer a further $500 just to bump up the value and was once again suffered another $70 deficit.

After transferring a total of $3,500, my value now is S$3,355.86. The corresponding Yen value I have is JPY 280,379.

1) I am quite confused actually, does this mean I have already made a capital loss of ~$145 and is unrecoverable? If this is so, then this service is not very great isn't it? Already losing so much, and still need to incur a further charge if I withdraw money from the ATM?

2) I have decided not to touch the money, will use it as backup, and just wait for six months to be up before I close this. If I transfer this money back to my main bank account, will I suffer further charges again? This is super not advisable at all right? I should withdraw the entire amt in Yen, and close the account right?

I am not really a numbers person, nor have I done any investing or anything. So I'm a total noob when it comes to finance matters. Please pardon my ignorance if I don't know obvious matters or missed out on them.

In any case, I am now in Japan and was able to open a local bank account with the help of my institution (I am currently studying in a language school). This also teach me not to be so rash and do some test water first before I commit myself to financial decisions.

Thanks for reading!

 

[mukguhim]

hi guys,

first of all, sorry if what i post later is a repeat qns/has been answered before, would appreciate if i can be pointed to it.

i created a MCA (DBS eMulti-Currency Autosave Account) back in March because I would be going to Japan for a year (for studies) and back then I was not able to confirm if I can open a japan bank account, thus i called up the bank and was offered this option.

Without giving it much thought, I created the MCA and immediately transferred S$3,000 into the Yen wallet, since S$3,000 would be the minimum amount to maintain in the account.

what happened next surprised me, the value of the $3,000 i transferred became $2,925, which I understand would be the value of the Yen wallet. I obviously expected some sort of charges would occur but I didn't expect it to be of such a huge sum.

I then realise also that this value would not meet the minimum amt required to maintain the account, I confirmed this with the DBS staff via real-time chat because I was already in Japan then. I proceeded to transfer a further $500 just to bump up the value and was once again suffered another $70 deficit.

After transferring a total of $3,500, my value now is S$3,355.86. The corresponding Yen value I have is JPY 280,379.

1) I am quite confused actually, does this mean I have already made a capital loss of ~$145 and is unrecoverable? If this is so, then this service is not very great isn't it? Already losing so much, and still need to incur a further charge if I withdraw money from the ATM?

2) I have decided not to touch the money, will use it as backup, and just wait for six months to be up before I close this. If I transfer this money back to my main bank account, will I suffer further charges again? This is super not advisable at all right? I should withdraw the entire amt in Yen, and close the account right?

I am not really a numbers person, nor have I done any investing or anything. So I'm a total noob when it comes to finance matters. Please pardon my ignorance if I don't know obvious matters or missed out on them.

In any case, I am now in Japan and was able to open a local bank account with the help of my institution (I am currently studying in a language school). This also teach me not to be so rash and do some test water first before I commit myself to financial decisions.

Thanks for reading!

This has to do with the buying/selling rates.

When you transferred your SGD to JPY, its based on the selling rates.

Now that you have your money in JPY, the balance shown in SGD is the indicative rate of your JPY, which is what you will get if you were to convert it all back to SGD, which is based on the buying rate that the bank is offering.

However, if you don't convert your JPY back to SGD, the sum in JPY will always remain the same.

Meaning... If JPY were to increase in future, the SGD equivalent will be higher (which will be a good time for you to convert your money back to SGD).

Hope this helps

 

[Charlie_Zhan]

hi guys,

first of all, sorry if what i post later is a repeat qns/has been answered before, would appreciate if i can be pointed to it.

i created a MCA (DBS eMulti-Currency Autosave Account) back in March because I would be going to Japan for a year (for studies) and back then I was not able to confirm if I can open a japan bank account, thus i called up the bank and was offered this option.

Without giving it much thought, I created the MCA and immediately transferred S$3,000 into the Yen wallet, since S$3,000 would be the minimum amount to maintain in the account.

what happened next surprised me, the value of the $3,000 i transferred became $2,925, which I understand would be the value of the Yen wallet. I obviously expected some sort of charges would occur but I didn't expect it to be of such a huge sum.

I then realise also that this value would not meet the minimum amt required to maintain the account, I confirmed this with the DBS staff via real-time chat because I was already in Japan then. I proceeded to transfer a further $500 just to bump up the value and was once again suffered another $70 deficit.

After transferring a total of $3,500, my value now is S$3,355.86. The corresponding Yen value I have is JPY 280,379.

1) I am quite confused actually, does this mean I have already made a capital loss of ~$145 and is unrecoverable? If this is so, then this service is not very great isn't it? Already losing so much, and still need to incur a further charge if I withdraw money from the ATM?

2) I have decided not to touch the money, will use it as backup, and just wait for six months to be up before I close this. If I transfer this money back to my main bank account, will I suffer further charges again? This is super not advisable at all right? I should withdraw the entire amt in Yen, and close the account right?

I am not really a numbers person, nor have I done any investing or anything. So I'm a total noob when it comes to finance matters. Please pardon my ignorance if I don't know obvious matters or missed out on them.

In any case, I am now in Japan and was able to open a local bank account with the help of my institution (I am currently studying in a language school). This also teach me not to be so rash and do some test water first before I commit myself to financial decisions.

Thanks for reading!

the deficit comes from the SGD portion of your MCA because all account fees and charges are debited from your SGD balance even if you have funds in other currency but 0 in SGD.

when you transfer S$3000 worth of JPY into your MCA it will not reflect as S$3000 balance due to the spread between buy/sell rates as well as daily fluctuations of the currency which will further affect the minimum average daily balance calculation of the account..

so come last day of the month, when all the day end balances are added and you do not meet the S$3000 requirement, the fall below fee of S$5 will be charged to your S$ balance.. if your S$ balance is 0.00, it will then become -S$5.00.

when your account goes into deficit (in this case the SGD portion), the account will be subjected to overdraft interest charges.. which has a minimum charge of S$20. if you didn't make any SGD top up since the S$5 charge last month, you will see the S$20 charge to your SGD balance at the end of the month which would make your SGD balance become -S$25.00..

so basically if you still don't do anything about the SGD deficit (top-up the deficit), this cycle will just repeat itself over and over.

you should call or live chat the bank to seek their help to waive those charges for you and normalise the account.. they should be in a better position to further advise you what to do from there on.

hope this helps.

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[dreant]

hi guys,

first of all, sorry if what i post later is a repeat qns/has been answered before, would appreciate if i can be pointed to it.

i created a MCA (DBS eMulti-Currency Autosave Account) back in March because I would be going to Japan for a year (for studies) and back then I was not able to confirm if I can open a japan bank account, thus i called up the bank and was offered this option.

Without giving it much thought, I created the MCA and immediately transferred S$3,000 into the Yen wallet, since S$3,000 would be the minimum amount to maintain in the account.

what happened next surprised me, the value of the $3,000 i transferred became $2,925, which I understand would be the value of the Yen wallet. I obviously expected some sort of charges would occur but I didn't expect it to be of such a huge sum.

I then realise also that this value would not meet the minimum amt required to maintain the account, I confirmed this with the DBS staff via real-time chat because I was already in Japan then. I proceeded to transfer a further $500 just to bump up the value and was once again suffered another $70 deficit.

After transferring a total of $3,500, my value now is S$3,355.86. The corresponding Yen value I have is JPY 280,379.

1) I am quite confused actually, does this mean I have already made a capital loss of ~$145 and is unrecoverable? If this is so, then this service is not very great isn't it? Already losing so much, and still need to incur a further charge if I withdraw money from the ATM?

2) I have decided not to touch the money, will use it as backup, and just wait for six months to be up before I close this. If I transfer this money back to my main bank account, will I suffer further charges again? This is super not advisable at all right? I should withdraw the entire amt in Yen, and close the account right?

I am not really a numbers person, nor have I done any investing or anything. So I'm a total noob when it comes to finance matters. Please pardon my ignorance if I don't know obvious matters or missed out on them.

In any case, I am now in Japan and was able to open a local bank account with the help of my institution (I am currently studying in a language school). This also teach me not to be so rash and do some test water first before I commit myself to financial decisions.

Thanks for reading!

At this point in time (rates at 30/04/2018, 7:03pm) DBS rates are:

JPY100 Sell 1.2277
JPY100 Buy 1.1975

And so, your JPY280,379; it's worth ~SGD3,357.54

a) The buy/sell spread for JPY is 0.0302; which works out to be about SGD25 per SGD1,000.

So, the initial transfer of SGD3,000, and buying of yen, would mean that the value of the yen you have would be about SGD2,925; which is correct.

b) However, the 'value' of any foreign currency (relative to SGD) moves every moment. So, its value fluctuates daily (or even hourly).

It appears you need to understand the relationship between JPY and SGD.

As JPY becomes 'stronger' against the SGD, you get more SGD back (similarly, it'll cost you more SGD to buy that same amount of JPY).

As JPY becomes 'weaker', you'll get less SGD back.

In the last week, JPY has weakened against the SGD, hence the SGD value of your JPY wallet has been shrinking; for the amount of JPY that you have in there.

Ultimately, you'll want to buy JPY when it's weak, and sell it when it's strong.

Whether or not you'll recover your SGD145, depends if JPY strengthens or weakens moving forward.

c) If your intention is to use the JPY in your MCA account, and you want to avoid the fall-below fee, what you should do is park SGD3,000 in your SGD wallet, so you can freely use the JPY in your account. If not, you'll definitely get hit with the fall-below fee once you start spending JPY.

Aside from that, you should only change the JPY amount you plan to use. You've changed SGD3,000 (or SGD3,500) worth of JPY. If you do not use it, and simply change it back right away, you'd have lost money on the spread. Holding it, on the other hand, exposes you to fx movements. It's possible to gain or lose money this way, depending on which way it goes.

 

[kapuliko]

hi guys,

many thanks for the information, though i do not understand some of the terms like buy/sell spread, i do sort of get how this thing works, really appreciate the advice!

unfortunately, i think i did this transaction at a time where the yen was pretty strong. i do not foresee the yen to be any stronger than at that point , and my friend was commenting that the yen is now weaker.

in any case, my action for now onward would be to wait for six months to be up, withdraw all the yen in it, and either deposit it to my local japan bank account or spend it away. then i will close that account. this is a valid action right? assuming i am not into investing or anything.

thanks again!

 

[dreant]

hi guys,

many thanks for the information, though i do not understand some of the terms like buy/sell spread, i do sort of get how this thing works, really appreciate the advice!

unfortunately, i think i did this transaction at a time where the yen was pretty strong. i do not foresee the yen to be any stronger than at that point , and my friend was commenting that the yen is now weaker.

in any case, my action for now onward would be to wait for six months to be up, withdraw all the yen in it, and either deposit it to my local japan bank account or spend it away. then i will close that account. this is a valid action right? assuming i am not into investing or anything.

thanks again!

While the action is 'valid' (not quite sure what you mean by that actually... it is a possible course of action), it may have some complications, depending on your situation.

a) You can't open a bank account in Japan, unless you have residence status - ie, you are on a student, work, or cultural visa.

b) You can only close your DBS MCA account in person, over the counter - It can't be done remotely, over the phone, or by internet.

If you're moving to Japan, and will be here for a while, then (a) is not a problem, but (b) might be. If you're not moving to Japan, then (a) is impossible, and (b) won't be a problem instead.

Some banks in Japan set the ATM withdrawal limit for foreign cards at JPY50,000 per transaction. So, you'll need at least 6 withdrawals to pull most of your JPY280,000 out. You might like to work out the fees involved in doing so, and figure out if it would otherwise be cheaper to just TT the funds into your JP account instead, if you already have one setup at this time.

If you're moving to JP, it could be a little difficult to get a credit card here. It's not impossible, but it could take some time. In such a case, simply keeping your DBS MCA, and using it for debit only functions is perhaps another course of action you could consider, since there are no fees involved when you do so. The upside of doing so is, if you'll be here for a while, you can always 'top up' your JPY wallet from your SGD balance via internet banking when yen is weak, as required.

The 'buy/sell' spread is the difference in the bank rates when you buy, or sell the currency.

At this point in time (rates at 30/04/2018, 7:03pm) DBS rates are:

JPY100 Sell 1.2273
JPY100 Buy 1.1981
(Rate at: 01/05/2018, 11:48am)

If you were changing SGD to JPY, and want JPY100,000, the bank uses the 'sell' rate, and it'll cost you SGD1227.30

If you were changing JPY to SGD, and had JPY100,000, the bank uses the 'buy' rate, and will only give you SGD1198.10 for it.

So, if you changed SGD > JPY > SGD immediately, you would effectively lose some money, because of the difference in the banks 'buy' and 'sell' price (which is where the bank makes money on FX).

 

[Lareina]

I just realised this account doesn't earn me any interest. I don't know if I should care about tat but I didn't get to use it so far.
Wonder if I should close it but was thinking in the future I might need to use it?
For now my money is like stuck there forever. Lol.