Beginners' Guide To Sending Money Overseas From Singapore Using Remittance Services

As a worldwide city that aims to be a good option to live, play and work, Singapore has attracted a sizable portion of non-Singaporeans living on our shores. About 30% of people in Singapore are non-residents.

Remittance services today are relied upon by an ever-increasing group, including migrant workers, expatriates and Singaporeans who've family members living overseas.

This guide outlines various remittance options available, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of using each kind and services information to be able to best retain and transmit the need for your hard-earned money for your family members.

Overseas Remittance Services In Singapore

Overseas remittance refers to the act of sending money from Singapore to another party overseas. This can be done in many ways, such as a wire transfer, electronic payment system, mail, draft, or cheque.

Because overseas remittance is an excellent method ill-gotten money can be laundered or illegal causes like terrorism can be supported, all remittance services in Singapore are regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Companies should be registered in the list of licensed remittance agents to be able to operate, and they must follow strict Know-Your-Customer (KYC) processes when performing transactions.

It is illegal to operate a remittance business in Singapore with no valid license from MAS, and you ought to make a report to the authorities if you come across advertising or are offered remittance services by a company or individual without a license.

In general, overseas remittance services in Singapore are provided by two classes of companies: banks and wire transfer companies.

When choosing between remittance services, you should think about factors like admin fees, forex rates, processing duration, minimum transfer amounts, countries supported, and convenience (such as availability of branches or in-app features like tracking of transactions).

In general, the larger the amount you signal each time, the lower the proportional cost you incur, so it makes sense to sort out an ideal frequency of remitting money back.

Bank Remittance Services

Most of us would have an existing bank account(s), hopefully, one which gives you high interest with a few or no effort.

Often, probably the most convenient (although not necessarily cheapest) way to send money overseas would be to achieve this together with your bank. Furthermore, if one makes the transaction before the cut-off time, your transfer could be completed on the same day for selected destination countries.

If you've already activated online banking facilities, you are able to remit money overseas by looking into making an online money transfer overseas. You don't have to first perform a bank transfer to your remittance agent, watch for them to confirm the receipt of funds, and then have them send the money overseas for you personally. In the event the transaction is rejected for some reason, your hard earned money stays put in your money.

Since you use your bank account, you'll be susceptible to the current transfer limits in your account, so you may wish to increase it prior to performing your remittance.

To facilitate the transfer, your bank may request additional information from you, just like your recipient's name, address, contact number, bank details (SWIFT/BSB/IFSC/sort code) and account number/IBAN.

You will get overseas remittance services from all of the neighborhood banks (DBS, OCBC, UOB) in addition to foreign banks, including Bank of China, Citibank, Maybank, Standard Chartered, and many more. Some foreign banks have preferential rates and quicker transactions for overseas fund gets in an overseas account of the same bank.

Overseas Wire Transfer Companies

To serve the swimming pool of foreigners in Singapore, the amount and variety of companies providing remittance services have been growing.

There are small companies operating out of a single location; multi-national wire transfer companies with a large network of branches like Western Union, and purely digital FinTech remittance platforms like InstaReM, SingX, Wise, WorldRemit, and Revolut.

To send money overseas one of those companies, you'll first need to take the extra step of transferring the funds out of your banking account to the cash transfer company, or you wish to remit physical cash, you will need to do so in a physical branch.

InstaReM

InstaReM is really a Singapore-headquartered digital cross-border payments company that was were only available in 2021, with presence across Asia-Pacific, The united states and Europe. InstaReM allows you, as an individual or business, to earn money transfers internationally. You can expect to pay at a significantly lower cost than it normally costs you via banks or traditional remittance companies.

You can send money overseas from Singapore (and 8 other countries/territories) to more than 55 countries across the world including China, India, Indonesia, The Philippines, Thailand, and also the Usa and Canada.

To make transfers from Singapore, there's a minimum transfer amount for individuals of S$100 or US$50. You can also make reference to the entire listing of InstaReM's International Cash transfer Limits here. You will find limits on maximum inwards remittance amount too due to regulations in receiving countries.

With processing fees which is between 0.25% and 1% (depending on the country), with zero extra margins on the offered exchange rates, InstaReM has one of the lowest charges among money transfer companies in Singapore.

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Wise (Previously Referred to as TransferWise)

Wise is one of the pioneer innovators within the remittance space, and they've grown to be one of the largest and well-known names within the global digital remittance space. They allow payments between 70 over countries, including Singapore. Typically, Wise could be 7x less expensive than banks and PayPal.

You get transparent rates and costs, which differ in line with the transfer amount. Money takes a maximum of A couple of days to arrive, though generally, cash is received much sooner, within an hour or so, actually.

In accessory for remittance services, Wise provides an international (“borderless”) money account with debit card and may help businesses receive payments from around the globe.

You can subscribe to Wise here.

WorldRemit

WorldRemit's unique selling point will be the ability to remit physical cash by depositing it and among WorldRemit's partner networks associated with a branch within the Xpress Money network, as well as the usual approach to bank transfer, while using WorldRemit Wallet or Mobile Money e-wallet.

From Singapore, you can send money to a lot more than 130 countries almost instantly to many countries.

Your recipient will get the money via a bank transfer, using supported e-wallets, or perhaps go for cash delivery, so that they do not have to go to a branch to receive physical cash.

SingX

SingX allows transfers from Singapore to 38 other countries, with transaction fees of between 0.5% (for stable, frequently traded currencies) and 1% (for more volatile, less frequently traded currencies).

SingX also offers an alerts service that notifies you when exchange rates hit a particular target threshold you want to monitor for.

Depending on the time you sent the funds and the destination country, funds can be received when the 24 hour, or within 2 business days at the latest. You can make reference to their processing times for detailed information.

Western Union

Western Union is among the most recognisable remittance services in Singapore. You are able to choose to help make your transfer utilizing their large network of physical branches, by visiting the website or using their app.

You can send money to one of 40 countries around the world, and your receiver can choose to pick up the cash at a Western Union branch and have the funds deposited in the bank account.

You can pay for the transfer utilizing a bacs, handing over cash in-store, or by using a credit/debit card.

Revolut

Launched in 2021, Revolut, a London-based fintech has since included cross-border transfer in their extensive offerings to people to spend, transfer and control their cash internationally. By downloading the Revolut app, we are able to now transfer to any Revolut user instantly or do bank transfers to over 130 countries.

For cross-border transfers, which means transferring in recipient’s domestic currency, Revolut charges you 0.3% from the amount sent, pegged to a minimum of S$0.30 and a more S$9. For SWIFT transfers, which mean transferring inside a currency foreign to receipent’s country, Revolut will charge S$5 to transmit USD, GBP, EUR, and CHF and S$9 for other supported currencies.

You can subscribe to the Revolut card here.