eCdD

What you can do is open a Euro account (I guess they have GBP accounts also) at your local bank and transfer the money into this account. Certainly the sender will not bare the costs, but these costs are much more reasonable. And on the Malaysian side it is only a few ringgit.

Then you open a dual currency account and with this you can trade your GBP to MYR with much smaller loss.

But at the end, Transferwise and competitors are the best choice. Another option is a Master Card with zero fees for use in other countries. But be careful, even there are tricks of the banks to cheat you.

ChrisC1955

Thanks for the advice!

James1234

Hi all, my names James and I am 24 years old. I am Northern Irish but I currently live and work in England due to my job in the British Army.
I have been with my partner for 3 years now, she is a Malaysian citizen, who I met while she was doing her degree in England. My partner recently moved back to Kuala Lumpur where she currently works. We are engaged and plan to marry April 2020 in Malaysia. Our intentions are too live in Malaysia.
I have read a lot of conflicting information online about a (LTSVP) also how easy it is to mess up the application. So I decided to play it safe and go through a lawyer in KL. The lawyer deals with LTSVP quite often. I have a meeting with her at the end of this current month.

I just have a few questions I hope someone could answer.

1. I read on a post that when you apply for a LTSVP you must have a sponsor outside of your partner. Also showing there income. Do you need to be employed? For instance, my partners parents are both retired so do not have monthly income. They are wealthy though, so could a balance of a sufficient amount be okay?

2. Is it best/easier to open up a joint bank account or my own bank account?

3. Work. I do plan on working in Malaysia and I see on the LTSVP that this can be a problem sometimes. I read that you can work if you obtain a letter stating you have been offered a position. Is this always the case? Or in some cases you just can't work.

4. Work. How hard is it to get work in KL as a foreigner? I do not have a degree, I have a couple diplomas and 7 years work experience in different fields. Before the army I worked as a manager in a retail shop and within the Army I work as an engineer. I also have a lot of experience in recruiting as I spent 2 years within the Army doing that.I am a hard worker and I don't mind working low level jobs to start with, so I would be willing to accept anything at the start.

I have around £25,000 worth of savings, so I hope that should give me enough time to support myself until I land a job.

Any help would be great

Thanks

IanBlakeley

Not needed, my wife is my sponsor we were given the same duff info as you and asked her brother, his wife is Thai so he was already familiar with LTSVP and told us not required. Your wife can be your sponsor the requirement is that the sponsor has an income of greater than RM2K PCM, my wife uses here UK rental income, immigration unlike the banks are satisfied by overseas income.

You'll almost certainly not be able to open an account until you have the visa, we opened a joint one before but I understand Bank Negara has tightened the rules, no idea about an account in your own name I've not tried

All LTSVP are stamped work is forbidden, you certainly cannot work on your first one which will be short(er). Once you have renewed and got at least a 12 month visa you can work but you have to have an offer letter from the employer before immigration will amend the visa, check out https://www.facebook.com/FSSGMY/ they are helpful and a lot of information bear in mind it is all volunteers so if you find out something useful please feed back to them

I've not tried all the work I've done since I came has been contracting overseas. Hopefully others can help, I suspect you'll need a second or third local language to be in with a chance, pay rates are by western standards low.

meched55

Supposedly allowed to work part-time 20 hours. But the red tape to get even that is almost impossible. Good luck you're better off having her move to the UK.

ChrisC1955

meched55

IanBlakeley

Shardy

Can't believe it was more than five years ago that I posted here. A little update - when I renewed my LTSVP middle of last year they now only gave me three years and said this is the most they offer now. No other circumstances had changed so I guess the rules changed.

I had also applied for PR in the meantime and after waiting two and a half years I got a 'reject' letter - I am told this is normal and they always reject first time to see if you can be bothered to re-apply!

(Job creation scheme?)

IanBlakeley

Just renewed again in Penang. Made my appointment in April via SPO@JIM all worked okay. I asked 5 years, yes I know and same as Shardy got told maximum is three so changed to three but it came back as two again so I have to go through the whole faff yet again in 2023. By then it will be 5+ years so in theory I can apply for PR in another year. Why they make it so difficult I do not know, friends elsewhere in the world have either gained PR or in some cases citizenship in the time I am still messing about with temporary visas.

Hovite

I renewed mine in Sabah last September. I asked for 5 years. Up to then I had one 5 year and one 4 year (due to UK passport expiry date). They gave me 3 years.

Hedge

Renewing LTSVP. I was turned away at Immigration. All renewals are now online. Submit/upload documents online then wait for a decision. They say 3 days. If approved you pay online then return to Immigration, show receipt and you'll be issued the new Visa.

Be advised that the max size per doc is 500kb so you may have to reduce. I'll repost any pitfalls.

H

IanBlakeley

Thanks, I'd seen mention of this on FB my turn next year by which time it will have changed. I am considering swapping to residence pass, I have a couple of friends on LTSVP and one of them is looking into it now, the other is thinking to when their latest LTSVP expires since they've been doing this for nigh on 30 years now (5 years in the UK and my wife's status was permanent) <sigh>. Unsure if there's any gotchas with the resident pass needs more digging but on the surface it is 5 years with an automatic 5 year extension.

Hedge

Just the update to the LTSVP renewal. After online application, email approval came the very next day! Print out the approval certificate. Then pay 90MYR online, again print out the official receipt. At this stage make an appointment online with your regional Immigration Office. For this, take all your receipts plus the originals of the documents you submitted online. At Malacca Office they even requested copies of all these that they dutifully stamped and kept despite everything being approved online. Wait 10 mins, walk out with new visa. Main takeaway, the system works, but for your appointment go armed with all documents.

Hedge

[QUOTE=IanBlakeley;13128479]Thanks, I'd seen mention of this on FB my turn next year by which time it will have changed. I am considering swapping to residence pass, I have a couple of friends on LTSVP and one of them is looking into it now, the other is thinking to when their latest LTSVP expires since they've been doing this for nigh on 30 years now (5 years in the UK and my wife's status was permanent) <sigh>. Unsure if there's any gotchas with the resident pass needs more digging but on the surface it is 5 years with an automatic 5 year

Is that the same as Permanent Resident PR? It's worth considering if you've done your time (I haven't). The rumour was that for that they have a quota and fail you on the first attempt just to see if you try again. Maybe that's 2 different things though.