This restriction is for USD to US only or for all USD related transfers regardless of the destination?
I believe internet transactions with USD denominated accounts is not well supported. I have a DBS USD current account, and I can't even see the historical transactions on it, only the account balance on internet banking.
For DBS MCA, you can pretty much only transfer funds between MCA wallets online.
what is the difference between the usd fx spread rates of ** and DBS?
the reason why i like DBS is that, they do not charge you for depositing/withdrawing USD OTC.
i believe ** does. hence if you roll in with suitcase of 100 large USD. the charge will be hefty
Citi's spread is not great; but they make up for it with the other facilities and services. If you're changing a significant amount, your RM can arrange a slightly better rate for you.
The other way would be to operate multiple accounts, and shuffle the funds around - that's usually more work than it's worth however.
Yes, the only advantage MCA has, is the ability to get physical USD into the banking system without fees; but that's not a very useful function, since most people don't exactly have suitcases of USD lying around.
Thanks for the info. So DBS MCA is out of the question for me.
I will be paid a lumpsum by my sponsor in SGD (not a small sum) which I need to transfer to my US bank account, which will be opened when I arrive at USA.
I need to figure out a way to transfer the SGD to my US bank account, preferably in one transaction, quickly (need to make various large payments when I arrive in USA eg. house rental), and in a cost effective manner. And because I will be physically there, I will have to do the transfer over the internet.
Read about Citibank's global transfer, the problem is that I read in other threads on the topic that there is a daily limit on the transfer amount for new accounts (abt a few thousand a day?), which means I have to do this over a few days. Plus I believe there is a minimum balance requirement, which is a problem since I do not want to maintain my funds in a SG bank account when I will be living in USA.
Fall back option will be doing bank draft (long clearing time, so I have to wait for it to clear before and I hunt for house) or TT using SGD, but I will have to swallow the exchange rate given by the SG bank (I bank with OCBC and CIMB).
Are you moving to the US for work, or are you migrating?
If you're moving, you will find it's important to still have SG bank accounts with good internet and phone banking facilities.
"Not a small sum" is subjective. If it's less than USD100k, I would consider it a small sum in the scheme of things of moving funds between borders.
I really like Citi, and use it a lot. The second most functional internet banking account I've found is UOB. You can pretty much do any transaction via the internet with these two banks.
One advantage of Citi is, it is possible to send a TT via internet banking, with no upper limit (if sent via internet banking secure message, otherwise their limit is SGD250k. Most other banks varies between SGD50k to SGD200k...). Another advantage is, if you have Citigold in any country, you don't need to maintain any minimum balance in any other country. In other words, if you moved all your cash from SG to US, and qualify for Citigold US; you can maintain your Citigold SG status and bank accounts with just SGD1 in the bank here.
Other ways would be, if you have a trusted person in SG; leave the funds with them and TT it across once you've established an account there. You'll still want to change some USD to carry there to get you settled in.
You probably can't open a bank account there, until you have an apartment too.
