Help me find a cheap bank for sending international wire transfers

Can anyone recommend a bank that does cheap international wire transfers who don't care about the amount? (i.e. same fee for transfering $1000 or $100,000) Currently I'm looking at Fleet which is $17 per transfer and First Union which is $12 per transfer but there is a $25 monthly fee. Any help/recommendations/suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

This is actually one of c2it major selling points if your recipient's country is listed on c2it.

You don't get the kind of service (speed) and legal protection you get with wires, though; you get what you paid for.
There's also a $2000 per 4-day limit.

sign up for the HSBC account in Hot Deals. get a $75 GC for opening an account and use that to offset your fees.

The lowest cost of international wire transfers I have seen is at State Farm Bank:
http://www.statefarm.com/bank/fees.htm
I do not have an account at StateFarm so I can not tell if there are any hidden fees.
I do not think there are any because State Farm seems to be a very customer-friendly bank.


MetLife Bank has a sevice called External Funds Transfer
http://www.metlifebank.com/Demo/OnlineDemoSix.html
I wonder if you can use it for International Transfers. ???

Bank of Internet has the following fees for International Wire transfers:
International outgoing, each, minimum $20.00 plus costs

International operator assisted, each $40.00 plus costs

http://www.bankofinternet.com/disclosures/feeschedule.asp

I am curious what "plus costs" means and how you can initiate wire transfers without
operator.

IMO, c2it is not a good solution. It's exchange rate is not good. If you send big money, the fee is not important, care about only the exchange rate. Only if the target account accepts dollars, then think about the fee

my GF used BofA for Int'l wire transfers: $30.

However, I would rather spend $30 for sending money abroad with a well-established bank that does thousands of such transfers a day than save $10 and send my money with Tijuana Savings and Loan.

*BECU does not charge a wire transfer fee. However, the member may be charged a fee by any financial institution that originates, receives or processes the transaction; this especially applies to international wires.

That sounds to me they may not be able to handle the wires themselves; they may have to go thru agent banks like BofA.

xpguy said:

<< DeGlass said:

<< This is actually one of c2it major selling points if your recipient's country is listed on c2it.

You don't get the kind of service (speed) and legal protection you get with wires, though; you get what you paid for.
There's also a $2000 per 4-day limit. >>

Thanks for your prompt replies, although I need something more secure than c2it, and if c2it has a $2000 per 4 day limit, that will do no good since I plan to send varying amounts that can range up to $30,000. Any other suggestions? >>

Are all of your transfers going to the same country and same person? If yes, then tell that person to ask his/her bank for its "correspondent account" information in the US. Once you have that, then you make your DOMESTIC wire transfer to that "correspondent account", i.e.
RECEIVING BANK is the bank-correspondent in US
BNF CUSTOMER is the foreign bank
BNF ACCOUNT NUMBER is the "correspondent account" number
Most importantly MEMO (sometimes called ADDITIONAL INFORMATION) field: "Further credit to (name of the person), account number (account number) with (foreign bank name)"

I have done it several times, and it works perfectly, never had problems. Basically this way instead of making an international transfer, you make a domestic one, which is usually faster and cheaper.

If you are sending money on a regular basis to someone you can trust (eg family), then the best method might be to send them an ATM card. This is what I did. I requested a second ATM card from BoA. Charges-wise, the FOREIGN ATM might charge you a nominal amount. Exchange-rate will be based on inter-bank rate (same as money transfer). This works well for me.

VagrTiger could you be more specific. Let's say I want to send 5000 to india someaccount@ bank of india in india. there is bank of india in US, NY too. So how would i save the hefty 30 dollar fee?
Thanks

Yes, Yes, VagrTiger is correct.

I opened an account with California Commerce Bank which is related in some way to Banamex. I wire money for just $5 per transaction to Mexico directly into the person's account. Done over the phone and the money is there immediately.
Not sure which country you are wiring to, but you need to find the "related" bank here in the US and open an account there.