the forex rates offered by banks wouldn't differ much

and of course i understand the manoeuvre that's been discussed earlier, i however was talking about my experience of having bank accounts in Australia

as to obtaining better rates from money changer, i'm not sure about other banks but i've enquired before, Maybank requires you to convert with them and not bring your own physical foreign currencies, correct me if i'm wrong

of course it's normal for banks to have teaser rates, however i'm commenting strictly based on your screenshot, which does not indicate that those rates are for an initial short period only


Thanks for your info. How much better are the rates? AUD for example compared with their board rate. I've got no HSBC account so i can't check myself. If it's really good i might just open one myself to transfer funds. Also would you know their TT charges to Australia? Since i do not have a HSBC premier account in Australia to transfer to.
Thanks in advance.

I'm assuming you've got a HSBC premier account, is it like a private banking account where there's a dedicated staff for you?

Haha as with all currency matters you can never tell if it's going down or up, you can only hope, but i think AUD should stay pretty strong provided the global economy is really recovering. It's astonishing how it went from 0.98 USD/AUD in 2008 to 0.60 in 2009 and now back up to 0.91.

Transferring funds back is the other thing, i bank with CIMB and the staff told me i need to use my local AUD account to make sure that when the funds are transferred from Australia it won't be converted to Ringgit automatically, if so i think the bank will of course use the prevailing board rate which is not a good rate.

LOL!

of course, if you are gonna buy a draft or TT from a bank, you will have to succumb to their rates. no questions asked

when i was suggesting your next door, friendly money exchanger, you will, actually have to 'ferry' the cash (hence i used the term 'physical cash' earlier) by yourself or via a proxy (for example your friend)

This post has been edited by nokia2003: Mar 21 2010, 02:02 AM

Not too sure on this as i have never carried out such transaction myself yet.



As long as you qualify HSBC Premier Malaysia, you can open an account with HSBC Premier Australia for FREE !



HSBC Premier, Citibank CitiGold and Standard Chartered Priority Banking are the ultra-light version of private banking. And yes, just like private banking, you'll get a personal banker guarding your account. Any queries related to your account you can just ring up your personal banker.

If you are wealthy enough and can afford of keeping at least US$10 million of cash at all time in one bank, then you are qualified to be a private client for HSBC Private Bank or Citi Private Bank, just to name a few. Please be reminded that even in HSBC Private Bank or Citi Private Bank, they maintain a hierarchy system which clearly stated your status inside the private bank. For example, the most prestigious one in Citi Private Bank is named "Private Wealth and Management" for all Citi Private Bank customers with US$50 Million of cash and above deposited with them.


The problem with AUD is that when anything goes wrong with the global economy, investors will all be dumping AUD and buy more USD. That is the reason why USD was pretty expensive since late 2008 but it is on the downwards trend again as the global economy is recovering.

Having a foreign currency account is a must for those playing "dual-currency investment". The return of "dual-currency investment" is two to four times higher than time deposit. The only risk is the exchange rate which is why they will ask you to maintain a foreign currency account with them. You can do the currency conversion yourself when the rate favors you.

This post has been edited by MilesAndMore: Mar 21 2010, 04:20 PM

so the question is can you bring your own foreign cash to a bank and buy a draft or tt to overseas?

by the way, can you transfer foreign currencies between two different local banks' foreign currency accounts? can you withdraw foreign currency in cash for that matter? and can you deposit that foreign currency in a different bank's foreign currency account?

appreciate it if someone knows the answer to the above

---

Added on March 21, 2010, 4:28 pmYou mean i can open an account with HSBC Premier Australia and conduct transactions like transferring funds online between my Aussie accounts without having to show up in a branch in Australia and show proof if ID's?

And it's free to transfer AUD in Malaysia to my HSBC Premier Australia?


Haha, i can only dream to reach US$10 million.

K la, that shall be my aim one day, one can always dream.

---

Added on March 21, 2010, 4:32 pmI suppose to hedge against such fall in AUD i can always sell AUD in the forex market. Too bad i don't know of any easy way to sell AUD against RM, but i guess AUD/USD should be a pretty good proxy, perhaps i should ask the private banks if they offer forex trading for retail investors, in RM.

This post has been edited by heliora: Mar 21 2010, 04:32 PM

Correct ! You'll even be given a HSBC Premier World Mastercard issued by HSBC Australia if you want one.



Yes. It is totally FREE to transfer money from your HSBC Premier Malaysia account to any other HSBC Group banks Premier accounts. However, the beneficiary must be you as well.


You should ask private bank ? What kind of private bank you are talking about ? Opening an account with a private bank usually takes a long time. It can be from a mere two weeks to as long as two months as they do a complete background check on you, how do you amass all your fortune etc.

Private bank really is only for the privileged few. It opens to a whole lot of investment opportunities that you and i have never even heard of. Early last year, several mega private banks offer their customers a weekly time deposit in Russian Rubles with a total return of more than 70% per annum. And you guys said AUD time deposit gives very high rate But of course, it is an investment opportunity that is not available to us.

By the way, you can't do forex trading in RM. Our BNM forbids that since 97 or 98.

On the HSBC Australia side, are they gonna give me a security device thing to transfer funds to my other Aussie accounts?

I think i'm gonna set up one liao, sounds like a pretty good deal.

Haha i meant CIMB Private Banking, my mum's got an account there. Don't need to be a super high net worth person to open one.
As for the US$10 million one, i'll wait for that day to arrive.

Hmm, no forex trading in RM, how about currency futures?

Btw, how do you know about the Russian Rubles investment? You sure you're not one of the privileged few?

This post has been edited by heliora: Mar 21 2010, 05:04 PM

Only if you choose to activate your online banking account, i suppose.



Indeed it is. Save you a good deal of TT money.



Indeed. Just RM1 Million of deposit will do. Account opening procedure is much less problematic and certainly do not take days, weeks or even months



For this one you might consider Citi Private Bank, JP Morgan, HSBC Private Bank, UBS, Credit Suisse etc. These banks can offer you investment insights that CIMB Private Banking can never offer you.



Not sure about this.


I am one whenever i go to sleep


This post has been edited by MilesAndMore: Mar 21 2010, 06:08 PM

AUD will get stronger as negotiations are going on with china regarding the commodities price e.g. coal. Read that the price will be at least doubled compared to what they are getting now.

The only problem with savings in banks in australia when you are not physically there is that there might be complication with the inland revenue if you tt the money back.

I also have some amount of money left in australia during my stint working there and still ponder how to get the money back here

Do you know what are Malaysia's tax provisions pertaining to income earned overseas? I believe there's a tax treaty between Australia and Malaysia so your income wouldn't be taxed twice.

I suppose you can just leave the money there and eat some interest.

In Malaysia if you are not in Malaysia for more than 90 days per calender year, then you are not considered as a tax resident. If you are not considered a tax resident for the year, then all of your income derived overseas (with proof of course) is not considered taxable in Malaysia. For example in year 2008, your total earning is AUD$ 50,000 for example and you have been in Malaysia for only 50 days for example, you can bring all the money back to Malaysia and declare to LHDN, with no tax whatsoever, EVEN though you did not pay Australia's tax.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 30 2010, 05:31 PM

hm... need to dig out all my tax income summary. I guess the best thing is i open a foreign currency account here locally and transfer all my money back from australia. Then exchange it when the rates are better.

Yep, I was employed a couple of years by country A, working in country B, paid by country C into a bank account in country D, which then auto remit back to Malaysia. The tax officer also "pening" when i declared my income, in the end i 'proved' that i am not in the country for more than 90 days, and he declared no taxes need to be paid.

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 30 2010, 11:05 PM

No. Foreign income is not taxable even if you're an eligible tax resident of Malaysia. Confirmed by my dad. He was a senior assistant director at LHDN Pusat Damansara. Left many years ago due to better prospective elsewhere. My dad's sister is still working there at LHDN Pusat Damansara, also as a senior assistant director.

what about my income overseas was for last financial year instead of this current ones? Any complication with taxman?

Heh my case is more complicated, set up by my company, end up pay no tax. Untimately the foreign income was remitted to my malaysian bank account on a monthly basis.

Anyway here is a passage from the malaysian tax law...

This post has been edited by gark: Mar 31 2010, 01:33 AM

You can refer to the scanned image below extracted from 2009/2010 Malaysian Tax and Business Booklet published by PricewaterhouseCoopers. It is stated that foreign generated income** is not taxable even when you remit it back to Malaysia.

A friend of mine who is working for a foreign company in the Middle-east doesn't pay a single cent to LHDN. He doesn't pay a single cent to the government in the country he is working in as the country too, is tax-free.



This post has been edited by MilesAndMore: Mar 31 2010, 02:21 AM

wow sounds like Malaysia's a pretty good place to be, income derived overseas not taxed plus no capital gains tax

Hi guys

Most of u are talking about premier banking / foreign FD but I have a slightly different question.

I want to open a FCA for Education purposes. GBP is low now and I'd like to start saving in GBP since I'm going to the UK next year to study. I went to Maybank and asked about their FCA facilities. Here are a few features that I dont like about Maybank's FCA :

1) Min deposit is $1k USD regardless of currency. Citibank min can deposit only £500.

2) FCA will be riding on top of a MYR current account. If I want to deposit money to this FCA, I have to write a letter .. asking to transfer from my MYR current account to my FCA account .. If I want to topup my savings every month, I have to fax letter every month zzzzz.. And if I want to withdraw, same process. Both adding of deposit and withdrawal will incur a $4 USD processing fee each time.

I'm looking for a FCA account (non-FD) that can allow me to deposit money using machine or Interbank GIRO and it will convert directly to my GBP account. I know Maybank is not doing this due to exchange issue (need to inform customer how much they're depositing exactly in foreign currency before proceeding). Dont care much about withdrawal because I dont intend to withdraw before I start studying.

Any recommendation? Or all banks actually operate this way?

How troublesome !!!



I am not sure if you can set up a SI for automatic currency conversion but ...


You can try HSBC. After all you're heading to UK. HSBC is the largest High Street Bank in UK.

And regarding the currency conversion issue. You can check the HSBC board rates in their online banking portal. You can send the request to convert your money from xxx currency into xxz currency from your online banking account. Pretty easy right ?

Ah thanks.. Sounds like a better process than Maybank

I guess it will work like this :

Cash deposit machine -> MYR savings/current -> FCA via Internet banking

A lot better than faxing letters