International money transfer policy: Singapore
Singapore is a global technological, financial and trading hub. Many expats and international companies are located there. As a result there are a lot of online companies offering remittance services. Legal money transfer services within Singapore must be licenced service providers in Singapore and are regulated by the Money Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Government control
In recent years, to prevent financial terrorism the Singapore Government has been monitoring all overseas transfers of more than USD 1,500. The monitoring is handled by the MAS. The bank or remittance provider that handles the transaction must supply details of the transfer to the MAS. Users may be asked to provide personal information, such as an National Identification Card, as evidence of the identity of the person completing the transaction.
Documents
If international wire transfers exceed USD 1,500 the required documents are:
- proof of residential address;
- identification (birth certificate, passport);
- date and place of birth, or registration.
All of this information must be provided within three days to the relevant authorities in Singapore.
Limits and fees
In Singapore bank fees are on average USD 40 for a transfer of USD 1,000, while TransferWise averages 7% depending on the receiving country. The main banks and payment providers are outlined in the table below, which is taken from the TransferWise website.
There is no publicly available information about the limits for international transfers per person per year set by the MAS. It appears that banks and online transfer providers set the limits themselves.
Based on research conducted by Finder as well as our own research, limits for overseas bank transfers vary by bank, and can be anything from SGD 200,000 (USD 144 000) daily to all countries to SGD 10,000 (USD 7 000), or limitless.
E-payment legislation
Under the new e-payment law issued by government, Singapore residents will not be able to withdraw Singaporean dollars from e-money accounts they have.
At the same time, personal account balances cannot exceed SGD 5,000 (USD 3 600) at any time and the total amount of payments made from an account in a year cannot exceed SGD 30,000 (USD 22 000), excluding transfers to the user’s designated bank accounts. These caps do not apply to merchant payment accounts for business uses.
Cryptocurrency policy
Cryptocurrency exchanges and trading are legal in Singapore. Although cryptocurrencies are not considered a legal tender, Singapore’s tax authority treats Bitcoins as ‘goods’ and so applies Goods Tax.
Credit cards and charge cards
In 2007 the Monetary Authority of Singapore has set the requirements for credit card for individuals below 55 years old:
- an annual income of at least $30,000 (or its equivalent in foreign currency);
- financial assets (net of any related liabilities) exceeding $1 million (or its equivalent in foreign currency);or
- total net personal assets exceeding $2 million (or its equivalent in foreign currency)
But according to regulation docs and many banks in practice have a deposit option, for those who want a credit card but have poor or no credit score. This involves putting down a fixed deposit, usually with a minimum of $10,000.
Here are the examples of popular cashback credit cards in Singapore.
All Singapore-issued cards you can use overseas, in this case a foreign transaction fee for singaporean credit cards is in average 3%.
ATM withdrawals
It appears that there is no daily cash withdrawal limit set out in law. The maximum withdrawal amount is actually determined by banks independently. A quick search found that, on average, banks set a default amount of SGD 3,000 per day. Customers can however change this in the settings of their online accounts.
You may use your card to withdraw money from an ATM that isn’t owned by your bank if the bank has a shared ATM network: if not, you will be charged S$0.30 (USD 0.2) per transaction on average.
STICPAY for Singapore
STICPAY continues to develop its e-wallet services in Asia, meeting local needs. The STICPAY local bank wire withdrawal service and STIC prepaid cards may be of interest to Singaporean customers. Also with Sticard users can deposit and withdraw crypto in BTC, ETH and LTC, as well as use crypto-to-fiat converter.
