International Money Transfer - US/CAN to DR

C

cavok

Silver
Jun 16, 2014
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Cabarete
I've deposited personal checks at both BHD and Banco Santa Cruz. I think you can probably deposit a personal check at any bank where you have a USD account.

Many cambios will cash your personal check, but you'll take a hit of 0.5 to 1.0 peso(or more) on the exchange rate. I lose 0.75 pesos on personal checks at Cambio Luis in Cabarete. A friend of mine in Sosua uses a cambio that only dings him 0.5 pesos.
 
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JD Jones

JD Jones

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cavok said:
I've deposited personal checks at both BHD and Banco Santa Cruz. I think you can probably deposit a personal check at any bank where you have a USD account.

Many cambios will cash your personal check, but you'll take a hit of 0.5 to 1.0 peso(or more) on the exchange rate. I lose 0.75 pesos on personal checks at Cambio Luis in Cabarete. A friend of mine in Sosua uses a cambio that only dings him 0.5 pesos.
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Radical said:
How about Popular?
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See post 19
 
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K

kenshireen

Active member
May 21, 2022
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usa
JimW said:
Back in February (2022), I did a test of three popular money transfer services from the US to the DR; Xoom.com, Remitly.com and Xe.com, by setting up identical USD $200 transfers with each to my recipient’s local RD Banco Popular bank account.

  • In the States we don’t have any banks in-common such as Scotia which Canada/DR have so I wasn’t able to test a direct bank transfer.
  • Also, I didn’t test the ever-popular Western Union as there’s an abundance of existing posts which generally note their conversion rates are on the low side. (of course, the trade-off is in some countries, WU is everywhere for local cash pickup)
  • I left out Ria.com and WorldRemit.com because in the past, I was unable to complete a transaction with either (Ria wouldn’t accept my bank account information and WorldRemit had problems with the transfer). I’ve since heard good things about WorldRemit from several folks and on my next transfer would probably take a look at them again.
  • As this test was done in February 2022, the exchange rate is of course what was in-effect at that time. The purpose is to show the difference between the three services tested. Note, in each case I used my US TD Bank checking account as the source. While many services offer using credit cards or debit cards as a funding source, there are in many cases either (a) delays (debit cards) or (b) cash-advance fees (credit cards). Bank account ACH withdrawal is usually the least expensive (short of being a mule and hopping a flight to Las Americas with a wad of cash but then you can have other problems...)
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What do you mean by TD bank checking account.. I live in US... do you mean TD Ameritrade?
 
JD Jones

JD Jones

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cavok said:
They are probably the hardest bank here for an expat to open an account. Also, their window exchange rate seems to be the lowest of all the banks here.
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That's true. Speaking to your friend the Manager usually will get you a higher rate.
 
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JD Jones

JD Jones

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cavok said:
Strangely enough, other than Banreservas, it's one of the easiest banks for a Dominican to open an account.
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That's true as well. I paid all of my employees electronically and if they didn't have an bank account they'd have to open one. I always sent them to Popular because it was practically in and out for them.
 
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Big

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if you establish a business relationship with a local cambio you can obtain a couple of G's US and walk out. Just make sure that check clears or they might take a digit and I dont mean monies. I think they are "connected". I no longer use them!
 
C

cavok

Silver
Jun 16, 2014
9,624
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113
Cabarete
Radical said:
Whats the wait for the money to be available after the check is deposited?
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It depends on the bank. BHD is about two weeks. Banco Santa Cruz is almost a month. The manager there did tell me that, if i needed money before the check "clears", they would give me part of it.
 
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U

Unit5

Active member
Jun 3, 2022
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Ontario, Canada
Hi All...Thank you all for your responses.

I attempted the Zoom/PayPal service. I did this via the PayPal app and have to say navigation was smooth. I even got the updates of when the transaction will be finalized i.e. in 3days. I was excited. On day 3 i get the sad news that the "3rd party" in the transaction was unable to validate the recipient's information and the transaction was cancelled! Complete disappointment! I am able to send to the same recipient via my Canadian Bank (RBC -royal bank of Canada), so I'm not sure what the actual story was. Their support was not able to provide details either; only to check the recipients details (which I already validated).

Will be looking at other suggestions you have provided...

Factors for me:
speed of transaction
Cost of transaction

Cheers!
 
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