Yesterday was 1st June and I had my payday. As always I promptly make my down to People's Park Complex to remit money back home. I think the companies that help us remit money do good business. They charge us about SGD25 per remittance and this place is always full. I have done this every month for coming to 3 years and the situation is always the same whether I go there in the evening or on Saturdays or Sundays.
At any one time, there is an average of 30 people there... so that's a SGD750 collection. Throughtout the day, there could be easily 300 to 400 people. That would be a daily collection of SGD7,500 to SGD10,000. And that's not counting the exchange rates gains they would be making from converting SGD to RMB.
I would imagine they do one single transfer at the end of the day to China and from there, individually bank in the money to each account. Imagine the profits they would be raking in. No wonder, there are easily 10 shops doing such brisk business within People's Park complex alone. Personally, I have used the same one shop since I came to Singapore as they have proven reliable and I see no reason to change.
Can you imagine that during my first month in Singapore, I remitted SGD200 back to my parents in China and had to pay a SGD25 fee? That's more than a 10%! I guess we all get smarter with age and experience!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
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question: is there not a bank of china in your town? can you not just deposit money in a bank account and let your parents withdraw it in china and avoid paying fee? just a thought. good luck.
ReplyDeleteActually I tried asking and bank transfers is even more costly and you can only do it during office hours... which is difficult for me!
ReplyDeletehi Jing i was not talking about a bank transfer, if you have a bank account and your parents have a connected ATM card you can deposit money anytime you want at ATM and they can take anytime with ATM card. just a thought. this is how i get my money from america in china. it is deposited in my american account and i take with master card ATM card in china. there is a fee but it is less than you pay and more convenient.
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