I’ve been ripped off once…. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. It’s like throwing away 1/3 of your money to the bank for nothing!

Let me explain….

Whenever you deposit a USD check to a Singapore bank, there will be 5 charges as stated below:

1) 0.125% (1/8 % of the amount of money of the check)
2) check commission fee (Min SGD $20 to a Max of SGD $100 per check)
3) mailing fees (The local banks need to mail it out to the US to clear the check)
4) US bank’s commission fee (Undisclosed amount! You will know it when you have paid for it!)
5) USD to SGD conversion (The market rate is about SGD $1.72 = USD $1.00, they’ll probably take SGD $1.69 and put that little bit in their own pockets!)

*** It doesn’t matter if your bank account is in USD or SGD! The only benefit is you’ll skip the USD conversion charge since there is nothing to convert. ***

What does this mean for a person like me who receives regular USD checks?

A bloody headache! That’s what it means to me! I have 2 options… First, deal with it… Let the banks rip me off. Second, open a US based USD savings/checking account.

I’ll choose the second option. Since the local banks are going to mail it to the USA anyway, why not I do it and save time and money? No more commissions to them and more money to me!

The challenge now is to look for a US bank that accepts non-us residents to open a bank account. I have to hurry! My checks won’t last forever!

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