Pension sent as wire transfer
 

Along with a UK state contributory pension I also receive a small Irish state contributory pension.
The Irish pension was sent as direct deposit until March of this year when the Irish government changed banks from Bank of Ireland to Danske Bank.
Now the pension is sent as a "wire transfer" with a charge of $14 per month.

Question about this in Irish parliament:
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates...021-03-31/661/

"Payments to markets outside Ireland where the sending bank is not a member of the domestic clearing system, such as the US or Canada, are processed as international cross border payments, also known as ‘international wire transfers’. Processing such payments as international wire transfers ensures that the sending bank complies with its national and international Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorist Financing (CTF) obligations. In order to effect these international wire transfers in markets such as the US and Canada, the services of correspondent banks are necessary, and their use is the industry standard approach."

"Pensioners pay price for Government’s banking move"
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/...move-1.4541777

"The Government’s appointment of Danske Bank has already raised some eyebrows, given that the bank is caught up in a major money laundering scandal involving €200 billion in suspicious transactions that flowed through its Estonian unit between 2007 and 2016."

I have checked with the Big Five Banks here in Canada and the only other country that sends their state contributory pensions as a wire transfer is Sweden who also use Danske Bank.

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

Can you have the pension deposited into a Wise account based in Euro and transfer the money to Canada that way?
https://wise.com/gb/multi-currency-account/

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

Thanks for that, but I may go with Scotiabank who have a special wire fee of $1.50 for pension payments:

https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/per...unts/fees.html

But it seems odd that a large Danish Bank is unable to do a direct deposit of pensions to banks in North America.

Danske Bank have a somewhat dodgy pedigree:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard...(whistleblower)

British banker Howard Wilkinson interview:

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

Exchange rate to consider too.

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

That's true. Similar to to the UK state contributory pension the exchange is done before the pension is sent to Canada.

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

I get a small civil service pension and the payer wouldn't tell me anything more than they "get a favourable rate" so I continue to 'receive' it my UK bank and do a (transfer)Wise transfer to my Canadian account. Very small fee combined with a very good rate.

I can't imagine the payer would do better.

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

Between my wife and I we have 4 small pensions still paid in the UK. When I looked into transferring them individually the costs were absurd. So I leave them being paid into a UK account and in my country of residence I purchased a bluetooth credit card machine for 10USD and linked it to my local account and now I just pay myself monthly using my UK debit card. Total transfer cost is 2.5% in GBP and 3% in local charges from the credit card operator. But this is outweighed by the excellent exchange rate and the avoidance of all other taxes, charges etc. I haven't found a cheaper way to do this other than letting amounts accumulate to reach a higher transfer value but this brings its own complications as I'm then obliged to fill in more paperwork as larger transfers are flagged to my local tax authorities and have to be justified.
PS I forgot to mention that as I live in a country with a fluctuating exchange rate this method also gives me the liberty to choose the exact moment I execute the transaction. Just watching the FX graph lets me effectively eliminate the charges as the transaction is instantaneous when I key in the PIN.

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

I'd suggest using 'Wise' or one of the other similar services.. potentially much cheaper than you are presently paying, depending on the amounts (and the exchange rates are usually very good)... https://wise.com

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

This FX graph is the reason that I get a good advantage by being able to choose the date and time of the FX conversion.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...2c99808ccf.jpg

Re: Pension sent as wire transfer
 

Which is exactly what you can do with a "Wise" account - transfer it when you want to..open a borderless account https://wise.com/ca/multi-currency-account/ Lots of threads on them (search 'Transferwise) :)

https://biz30.timedoctor.com/transferwise-review/