> for a simple service. A bank that allows you to transfer money to foreign > accounts through internet banking with modest fees is desireable.
Sure is! > So which bank(s) have the best services and lowest fees in this regard? Which way? For receiving money by direct transfer, the fees are paid by the sender. 10y ago, the BNZ charged NZ$20 for letting money into New Zealand and for forwarding it to the bank (+ account) specified by the sender. Don't get me *&@*#$&( started on that. The $20 may have been dependend on the total amount, and may no longer be charged (anyone know?). For sending money, Kiwibank doesn't deal with foreign exchange and send you to another bank (as of about 3 months ago), 3 of the others I rang all had the same damn exorbitant fees of about NZ$20 (plus fee for the currency exchange, which is built into the exchange rate). The exchange rate you get from NZ banks can vary by NZ$0.01, which is a noticable amount. Bank draft/cheque and direct transfer are about the same fees, with the former you still have to airmail that piece of paper (gee thanks). Paypal's conditions for receiving money absolutely suck. They refuse to give you an exchange rate in advance. There are modest fees for getting the money from paypal into a NZ bank account. For receiving money from credit cards, paypal fees for all transactions are noticably higher (need a different account type with higher fees). For any country not on the list of countries able to receive money from your paypal account, paypal is effectively useless. Fortunately NZ is on the list. For just one payment to you it's effectively useless (far too many overheads). You can't have paypal balances in NZ$. Basically, it's a Yank service. Paypal is effectively a bank, although they refute that for legal reasons (they don't have to comply with USA bank requirements then). For paying by credit card to a paypal recipient, the exchange rate I got was, as far as one can make out, identical to the exchange rate for any other credit card payment to a USA receiver. Unfortunately, due to the unbelievable inertia of banks worldwide to move their butts[1] into acceptable regions, paypal is the only practical choice. This appears to be a permanent characteristic of banks and I don't expect that to change. If anyone does indeed know better alternatives, I'd like to know too. Volker [1] I've heard credit cards were invented because American banks were too stupid to even move money from one US state to another. ROTFL... -- Volker Kuhlmann is possibly list0570 with the domain in header http://volker.dnsalias.net/ Please do not CC list postings to me.
