More Advanced Banking Tips For Foreigners
Luis Riestra, CEO of Wise and Wealthy, has put together a five-part series to educate foreigners on getting their banking needs met while residing in South Korea. This is the fourth part of the series. ― ED.
By Luis Riestra
Contributing Writer
If you send money abroad regularly, then you want to keep all forms that are returned to you as proof of your remittance. Next time, bring these to the same branch, and this will reduce the amount of information you need to enter in the form to just the amount and your signature, if you are remitting to the same account again.
This facilitates the teller's job and speeds up the transaction. If you visit a different branch of the same bank, bring this document. If you are remitting from a different bank, you can't use that bank's form, and must redo the whole thing.
Ideally stick to one bank, one branch, one agent (usually the same person sits on the foreign exchange desk on the same hours of the day).
Several banks nowadays have a machine similar to their ATMs that is solely meant for bill payments (i.e. electric, gas, water).
Although most ATMs now have foreign language menus, the ones for bill payment usually don't, and if you try to pay your bills at the teller's counter, they will send you off with the security guard so this person can show you how to use these machines.
You may not feel comfortable with Korean menus, but the pattern of steps to complete the process is fairly simple. You swipe your bankbook on the scanner, with the magnetic stripe facing as shown on a video that replays every few seconds, and then choose the bill-payment option by touching the corresponding icon on the screen.
Then you see the video that shows how to detach your bill and what portion to insert in the bottom part of the machine that scans it and confirms the amount.
If you have more bills, don't touch the screen, keep inserting them one by one and let it confirm the amount of each in turn, then touch the green icon when you are done, enter your PIN, get your receipt (only proof of payment as there will be no stamps provided), and you are done.
The pattern is the same and specific to each bank. You will save yourself lots of time from lining up with a number to see a teller that will send you off there anyway.
Foreign exchange generates serious revenues for banks, where usually the customer pays to obtain the target currency at the bank's official rate.
Some banks try to impose a commission on top of this if your account is at another branch ― simply said, don't put up with it. You can request the teller to process your exchange without this extra fee, or you can request they forget about it and tell them that you'll exchange at another bank across the street.
Another way is to stick to the same branch for all your exchanges.
Furthermore, when you look at that screen all banks have hanging on the wall with red numbers displaying ``Buy'' and ``Sell'' rates for major currencies (U.S. dollar, Japanese yen, Euro, etc) you see a gap, which can be of some 4 percent or 5 percent between the ``Buy'' and the ``Sell'' numbers.
It's somewhere in this range that you will be charged ― usually close to the actual display.
As your relationship with your bank staff develops, the teller who sits in the currency exchange desk daily, usually the same person, will get to see your face often, and this is when you can push for a little better rate, always being discreet about it.