Transferring money from Hong Kong back to your home country is cumbersome and expensive. Exchange bureaus are a rip-off and banks offer poor rates, even before charges are imposed on sender and recipient accounts. There are two banking options which offer free international transfers of sorts…
…HSBC Premier offer free worldwide transfers for eligible elite customers, whilst Citibank has free transfers between Citibank accounts globally. If you’re not with Shittybank or HK’s Bullshit Corporation, you could convert your wealth to Bitcoins or withdraw hoards of cash to get your money home…
…Peer-to-Peer currency exchange is the next best option for the rest of us. Xoom and Transferwise are big players but neither deal in HKD, leaving Currencyfair. You can check the day’s rates on their website and calculate the savings involved – most of the savings come from fees.
For example: If you wish to send pounds to the UK, deposit HKD in their HK Bank of America account and – after a £3 fee – it appears in their London account. From there, it can be transferred to an account of your choosing. The process takes around 3 days. At the time of writing, a transfer of HK$50,000 is converted to £3918.53 – a saving of up to £114.64.
Mercury FX is another option, which uses some convoluted forward-hedging futuristic yield gymnastics to offer better-than-bank rates. It appears to be more geared towards business and fees are not stated on their site.
Any other suggestions/ideas? Please get in touch or comment below.
(This is an independent, unbiased recommendation – advertising and sponsorships are always declined beyond existing Google ads. The links above are not referral links, but you may quote my name at Currencyfair registration if you wish to help the blog).
Click here for a full list of useful links for expats. Other tips for foreigners residing in HK…
- Accessing iPlayer from Abroad.
- Cheapest Books Delivered to HK.
- Cheapest Mobiles: Top 4 Places.
- China Visa – How to Apply.
- Comprehensive Map of HK Markets & Hidden Malls.
- Escaping HSBC: HK’s Alternative & Least Worst Banking Options.
- Flat-Hunting Guide and Links.
- Flight Tips and Links.
- How to Bypass the South China Morning Post Paywall.
- Local Job Hunting Links.
- Navigating HSBC’s New ATM Card Farce.
- Teaching Work in Hong Kong.
- Surprise! Loyal HSBC Customers Who Remained With Bank Screwed Again.
Great post, thanks a lot!
Great post, thanks a lot!
gud post
gud post
Currency Fair is down as of April 16, 2015.
“Unfortunately as of Thursday 16th April we can no longer accept Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) deposits.
This is due to our HKD payment services
provider deciding to withdraw from the foreign exchange and payments
business. This is a decision completely unrelated to CurrencyFair and
has impacted all of their clients. As a result of this decision we are
unable to continue to accept HKD deposits into the CurrencyFair account.
We are hoping to get a new provider for HKD however there is no
definitive time frame in terms of when this might happen.”
– Currency Fair
such a shame! what are you using instead?
There is a new player in the market, ONEPIP (Hong Kong) Limited. I’ve used their services previously to send money to Canada, and the rates are pretty decent.