The Best Remittance Services in Singapore

Looking to send money abroad from Singapore but wondering where you can find the cheapest deal on your remittances?

Fortunately, by evaluating tens of thousands of comparisons using Monito's engine over the past six months, our research has revealed that four major players compete to provide the lowest rates on transfers abroad from Singapore: Skrill, InstaReM, TransferWise, and WorldRemit.

While transfers abroad with all four of these providers are on average significantly cheaper than those using traditional Singaporean banks, the one that's ultimately the cheapest for you will largely depend on which country you're sending your money to. For example, the cheapest provider when sending money from Singapore to China will, on average, be different when it comes to sending money to the United Kingdom.

On top of this, another thing to keep in mind before you rush into any of the above providers is to determine whether you're looking for the cheapest option every time you send remittances from Singapore, or whether you're looking to sign up with only one or two providers who are on average, but not necessarily always, cheaper than the rest.

Looking to Save on Average?

Registering with just one or two money transfer providers can be a very smart way to keep the costs down on average when sending remittances home from Singapore. However, the best provider or providers to choose will differ slightly from country to country:

Sending to Malaysia

When sending money from Singapore to Malaysia, we can confidently recommend that you choose the UK-based fintech company Skrill, which will very likely offer you the cheapest rates on your transfer. According to an analysis of our data over the past six months, Skrill was the cheapest transfer provider for transfers from Singapore to Malaysia a convincing 96% of the time!

Sending to India

Skrill led less convincingly when it came to transfers from Singapore to India, however. For this transfer corridor, we found that Skrill was the cheapest provider 47% of the time over the past six month period, with InstaReM coming in at second spot as the cheapest provider 43% of the time.

As such, if you'd like to keep costs down while sending remittances from Singapore to India, we suggest that you use either one of these two money transfer providers. As their rates are very competitive with one another, if you don't end up choosing the cheapest solution — you very likely won't be far off it!

Sending to Indonesia

One of the world's cheapest money transfer providers, TransferWise is on average the cheapest option for transfers from Singapore to Indonesia, and we recommend the service if you're looking to make low-cost transfers between these countries.

In this case, we found that TransferWise was the lowest-cost option 62% of the time over the past six months.

In second place, we found Skrill to be the cheapest option 16% of the time, followed closely by WorldRemit and InstaReM, which were the cheapest options on 12% and 10% of comparisons respectively.

Sending to Another Country

If you're looking to transfer money to a country other than Malaysia, India, or Indonesia; Skrill, InstaReM, TransferWise, and WorldRemit are still, on average, very cheap options to choose.

Looking to Save Every Time?

There may be a good chance that you're looking to cut down the costs on your remittances from Singapore no matter what!

If this sounds like you, we recommend that you make a point of checking our comparison engine every time you transfer money. That way, you can ensure that you both discover the cheapest provider in real-time and make considerable savings on your international money transfers from Singapore.

Remittances From Singapore: What To Avoid

If you're interested in cutting the costs on your money transfers and remittances from Singapore, then we'd thoroughly recommend that you steer well clear of banks and traditional transfer providers such as UOB, HSBC Singapore, DBS, Western Union, and even PayPal.

Not only do these services charge steep base fees on sending money abroad, but they typically also charge hidden fees that are built into their exchange rates. These fees, known as exchange rate margins, are seldom presented in a clear and transparent manner, and can end up clinching a lot of cash from the final amount to arrive in your recipient's bank account.

Take a look at the graph below to get a sense of how much could save on a 2,500 Singaporean dollar transfer to India by choosing InstaReM rather than UOB, OCBC, DBS, or Maybank (as of 23/09/2020):

Photo by Lukas Träger on Unsplash