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DBS Overseas Transfers: Everything You Need to Know

Jan 6, 2021
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Are you thinking of using DBS to send money overseas from Singapore? While the bank does offer lower fees on international transfers than do many of its local counterparts, savvy users should be cautious of how these fees are structured and keep in mind the lower-cost alternatives available on the market.

DBS, formerly known as The Development Bank of Singapore, has a long history in the global banking scene. First established by the Singaporean government in 1968, DBS has since expanded its operations to more than 250 branches worldwide, advancing on to become the largest bank in Southeast Asia in terms of total assets.

What’s more, DBS has topped the rankings as Asia’s safest bank every year consistently since 2009 according to Global Finance Magazine’s World's Safest Banks index, with business magazine Euromoney even going so far as to declare DBS Asia's "best bank" in 2020 as part of its Awards for Excellence for that year.

Accolades aside, however, DSB leaves a lot to be desired for both individuals and businesses when it comes to sending money abroad while keeping costs down. By exploring the bank’s fees and hidden exchange rate margins, Monito has found that despite being slightly less expensive than many other Singaporean banks, DBS remains a pricey choice for those who wish to save cash while sending money overseas.

What Will DBS Singapore Charge You?

At DBS, the fees you’re charged will vary considerably depending on whether you want to send money as an individual or business. While both will pay a flat S$20 cable charge for online international wire transfers (also called telegraphic transfers), fees for businesses and individuals are structured differently from thereon out.

For individual clients, DBS charges progressively higher fees based on the amount being transferred. These fees, known as “handling commissions”, are fixed fees that fall into the following three echelons: 

  • For transfers of S$5,000 or less, you will pay S$5 in handling commission fees.
  • For transfers between S$5,000 and S$25,000, you will pay S$10 in handling commission fees.
  • For transfers greater than S$25,000, you will pay S$35 in handling commission fees.

For businesses, on the other hand, the fees are organized slightly differently. When transferring money abroad with DBS, the bank will take a 0.125% slice of all cash that leaves the business’s account at a minimum of S$10 per transfer and a maximum of S$120 per transfer.

DBS Exchange Rates: Beware the Hidden Fees

In addition to the cable charges and handling commissions listed above, both businesses and individuals sending money overseas using DBS are also subject to a hidden exchange rate margin

In essence, this means that the bank will pocket the difference between the exchange rate at which you’re charged (a rate the bank itself determines) and the actual exchange rate used by banks, known as the mid-market exchange rate. While DBS’s exchange rate margins are slightly lower than those charged by some other Singaporean banks such as Maybank, the extra costs can stack up quickly, nevertheless.

Take a look at the graph below to get a better picture of how DBS applies an exchange rate margin on international money transfers for businesses and individuals:

The Costs Combined

All things considered, with both the relevant fees and the exchange rate margins taken into account, DBS remains an expensive choice for international money transfers despite being slightly less expensive on average than most other traditional Singaporean banks.

For example, if an American expat living and working in Singapore were to send S$100 back home to the United States, slightly more than a quarter of this amount (S$25.54) would be charged in DBS's total fees at the time of writing. Contrast this to making the same transfer with CurrencyFair, for example, a Dublin-based money transfer service that was the cheapest for this transfer on our comparison engine at the same time, where the expat would pay only S$0.49 in total fees!

However, as with all money transfer services, the more money one sends abroad, the lower the total fee percentage will end up being.

Take a look at the tables below to get a better picture of how this works (as of 05/01/2020 at 16:00 +02:00 GMT):

The Costs Visualized (For Individuals)

The Costs Visualized (For Businesses)

Compare the money transfer marketplace and save up to 95% in fees on your next transfer from Singapore to any currency or country across the globe:

Compare the market to save up to 95% in fees compared to the bank:

Sending Money Abroad With DBS: Other Fees to Anticipate

Depending on your circumstances, you may be hit with additional fees when transferring money abroad using DBS. These may include:

  • A S$20 tracer fee per transfer for individuals and businesses who’d like to keep an eye on their cash status before it arrives in the recipient’s account.
  • A S$30 amendment fee per transfer for individuals and businesses who’d like to change their transfer details after having already sent the money.
  • An agent bank charge of an undefined amount charged when the bank to which the money is being sent does not have a formal relationship with DBS. In these cases, DBS uses an intermediary bank to facilitate the transfer, creating a fee in the process. This type of fee is known as a correspondent bank fee.

💡 INSIDER TIP

Avoid "OUR" Payments. In order to dodge agent charges, we'd recommend that you avoid choosing "OUR" payments wherever possible, in the event that you're asked to choose between "SHA", "BEN" and "OUR". These instructions can open the door to your beneficiary's bank or the intermediary bank levying further fees from you long after the transfer has been sent.

Paying DBS a Visit? Pay DBS to Visit

It's also worth noting that DBS makes a point of charging higher fees on international money transfers as soon as a human employee becomes involved in the process.

For example, if a business were either to send a transfer using one of DBS’s branches or to issue a transfer via manual instruction, they would be subject to a cable charge of S$35, a fee that's considerably higher than the S$20 cable charge they'd pay by going through the process online.

Similarly, if a personal client were to send money from a DBS branch, they would be subject to a 0.125% cut per transfer on the total amount that leaves their bank account. This fee comes in at a minimum of S$10 and a maximum of S$120 per transfer, with the final amount paid in fees usually ending up higher than the fees levied on online transfers.

Skip the Fees With DBS Remit

Aside from traditional money transfers, DBS offers a built-in service called DBS Remit. This option allows personal clients of DBS’s online and mobile banking service digibank to send same-day money transfers to 16 countries and the Eurozone without paying cable charges and commissions.

While DBS Remit is a great option to send money abroad quickly and cheaply from the security of an institution such as DBS, users should keep in mind the following before launching into this option:

  • Take note of the fees. Contrary to what the bank may tell you, there are still fees that go along with using DBS Remit for international transfers. These come in the form of a built-in exchange rate margin.
  • Consider the advantages and drawbacks. As a result of paying only an exchange rate margin fee, DBS Remit is a smart choice, particularly when sending small amounts of money abroad. However, the larger the amount that's sent, the less consequential the savings become.
  • Check if your destination is available. DBS Remit can only send money to select countries, while traditional transfer services with DBS can send money anywhere.
  • Note the cut-off times. If you want to make use of the same-day transfer perk, you’d need to be sure that your money is sent before the cut-off time relevant to the desired destination.

To learn more, take a look at our full in-depth review of DBS Remit here.

Is DBS Singapore Right for You?

All in all, using DBS to send money abroad could make sense for you if you value the security offered by traditional banking and don’t have a problem with slightly higher fees.

After all, even though the total cost of sending money abroad as a business is slightly higher than doing so as an individual with DBS, the total costs of each remain at least 2 percentage points less expensive than what you’d pay for a similar service at UOB⁠, another major local bank which we reviewed here.

Skrill was the cheapest transfer service on 39.4% of all comparisons from Singapore on Monito in 2020.

However, if you’d like to cut the unnecessary costs out of sending money abroad, we recommend that you explore your options with one of the many highly-competitive money transfer services available to Singaporeans. Try running a search on Monito's real-time comparison engine to get the job done, and see just how much you could be saving on your next international money transfer.

As a case in point, take a look at how DBS compares to a few of these services on a S$750 transfer to Australia (as of 05/01/2020 at 16:00 +02:00 GMT):

Find Cheaper Ways To Send Money From Singapore

Photo credit: Deyoadutrys, distributed under a CC-BY 3.0 license without modification

Why Trust Monito?

You’re probably all too familiar with the often outrageous cost of sending money abroad. After facing this frustration themselves back in 2013, co-founders François, Laurent, and Pascal launched a real-time comparison engine to compare the best money transfer services across the globe. Today, Monito’s award-winning comparisons, reviews, and guides are trusted by around 8 million people each year and our recommendations are backed by millions of pricing data points and dozens of expert tests — all allowing you to make the savviest decisions with confidence.

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