Cheapest way to pay clients in Thailand from Singapore?

[stu...@roomfilla.com]

Hey there, 

We have a Singapore company and have clients in Thailand who we need to pay on a fairly regular basis. Through some research, it seems that Singapore is a very regulated market for foreign exchange brokers and services. 

Does anybody know how we can do this cheaper than using the banks? A service like Transferwise would be the holy grail.

Appreciate your input!

Best,

Stuart

[Mark Thien]

Try braintreepayment

Cheerio,

Mark Thien

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[niallgreenwood]

Stuart, to short cut a bit, this is a deliberately regulated area, which is why concepts like Transferwise have very limited applicability in Singapore. You might shop around with Western Union and a few brokers, but I suspect (much like for GBP) you're going to find most rates uncompetitive, sorry! Niall

Sent from my Mi phone

[Thai Dang]

Hi,

I contacted Braintree a few months ago and they said that for companies registered in Singapore, Braintree only supports the collection of payments, but NOT the payouts to clients (the payout service is only available for companies regsitered in the U.S.).

I'm not sure whether that service is now coming to Singapore or when, so if you hear anything, would glad to know. Thanks.

(P/S: For Western Union, they do not allow doing it online in Singapore. You have to do it offline at a SingPost shop. And the rate will be at least $25 each time which is not cheaper than telegraphic transfers. Western Union Online is available in several countries, but mainly in North America, Europe, Australia, NZ, but not Singapore).

[David M.]

Sorry if I'm late to reply to this- just saw it in the archives.

This is a pretty good use case for bitcoin. If the other side has a liquid market....
Fees on both sides are usually around .5 to 2% depending on who you use and the amount, or if the exchange is doing some sort of new user campaign.
It also depends on liquidity and amount- as the more you want to send, the deeper in the order book you make have to go. but thats always getting better.

If the other side is willing to take the risk and hold bitcoin or in turn pay their suppliers or staff in bitcoin, then it gets better too.

David

[Stuart Lansdale]

Just a quick update on this for all following. After a lot of emails and calls and back and forths with people telling me that Singapore is too difficult etc. It seems I have found a solution. There is a company based in the UK called Currency Cloud. They have a payments solution provider called Claydon Partners. Took a demo with the guy and asked all relevant questions and seems to be a slick online UI where it is simple to do what we need. Going through KYC stuff at the moment but looks definitely promising. 

We also looked into other stuff like Payoneer but found the issue with this is that we want to have as little friction as possible with our payouts. Payoneer requires each individual payout account to register on their site and complete KYC, something which would be difficult for us considering some of our customers are not the best online. 

On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 12:25:07 PM UTC+8, Stuart Lansdale wrote:

[Niall Greenwood]

Stuart, Interesting and great that you found a provider - can I ask what rates you get, between which countries? Cheers, Niall

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Date: Thu, 3 Sep 2015 19:12:17 -0700
From: stu...@roomfilla.com
To: open...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [OpenFrog] Re: Cheapest way to pay clients in Thailand from Singapore?

[Stuart Lansdale]

Hey Niall,

Still goign through KYC and other things. Will report when I actually have the dashboard working... should be end of this week! 

[Thai Dang]

Thanks Stuart. Hope to hear from you.

Would also like to know how to fund the account from Singapore?

As they are a UK company, I guess need to first use SWIFT telegraphic transfer to transfer from Singapore to UK, right?

As for Payoneer, seems like Mass Payouts is only available for companies with total monthly payouts of $10,000 USD or more. Guess still have some time to go before reaching that amount.

[Wong Meng Weng]

is https://www.worldfirst.com/en-sg/ a possibility for you?

[Shen Heng]

Hi

We use Payoneer a lot and sometimes Skrill depending on the recipient country restrictions.

Shen

[Stuart Lansdale]

Hey all, 

Just wanted to post an update on how we solved this. We looked for a bunch of options and the thing that we went for in the end is a company called Claydon Partners in the UK. They took a long time to do KYC with us but we finally finished all that stuff and the account is perfect for what we need. The way that we will work it is to bulk send a large amount of SGD to the account every month to get THB. We can then set up multiple payout accounts to all of our receipients for small amounts from this lump. 

We looked into a lot of options and Skrill and Payoneer were muted but were not right for what we needed. Worldfirst also looked good but we found out that you can only send over a min amount ($1k) and you can't send a specific amount to accounts. We have to send specific to owners for example 32,465 THB, they need to receive this exact amount. 

Either way, we are just starting to play with it but it seems to be working well. 

On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 12:25:07 PM UTC+8, Stuart Lansdale wrote:

[Niall G]

Out of interest Stuart, what's the transfer cost as a % of the official exchange rate ie including buy/sell spread?

Sent from my iPad

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[Stuart Lansdale]

Hey Niall,

Apologies. I don't check this so regularly. I did a transfer on 26 Nov , 10:18 GMT for 10k SGD, got 25.0038. Midmarket was 25.3163.

Best,

Stuart

[Niall Greenwood]

So you're paying 1.25% on the front end, so assume 2.5% overall, which is quite decent. Niall 

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Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2015 22:03:50 -0800
From: stu...@roomfilla.com
To: open...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [OpenFrog] Re: Cheapest way to pay clients in Thailand from Singapore?

[Stuart Lansdale]

Hey all, quick update. We have just started using a SG startup backed by 500 called Coinpip, they let us pay to ID, PH, VN, TH and other places for 2% or 1% if we do over 10K USD a month, this is the only fee, exchange done at mid-market rates. This is by far the best deal we have found so far. KYC was a bit of a nightmare but is now done. Looks like a cool service, also lets u send bitcoins to a wallet which is something you can offer staff if they prefer or want to split some salary! 

[Roland Turner]

Hi Stuart,

Coinpip's KYC was difficult for you, for your payees, or both?

- Roland

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/openfrog.

[Thai Dang]

Thanks very much for your information.

I read on their website that they use blockchain technology => so do they use Bitcoin to send to ID, PH, VN,... or it's just normal money?

And if total amount is < 10k per month, how much would be the fee?

Thanks.

[Stuart Lansdale]

Hey Roland, difficult for us, KYC is not needed for a lot of their countries, still needed for TH but PH, VN, ID is not needed on the client side. More the issue with my Thai address being written in Thai script so a pain in the ass to get translated. 

[Stuart Lansdale]

My understanding is they use the bitcoin platforms in each country, so buy in one and sell in the other. Client will receive cash in their currency for the value you specify. All the bitcoin trickery is behind the scenes. 2% less than 10k USD, 1% if you can show consistently more. 

[Thai Dang]

Not sure if their Bitcoin process is legal or not? Are they a licensed money transfer provider in Singapore?

But for sure that Bitcoin is illegal in Vietnam (VN).