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Transfer money to South Africa


ShaunT

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Hi All

I need to transfer money to South Africa monthly for my Mom. I find the bank fees and exchange rate are pretty bad. Is there a cheaper way to transfer money back?

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I use transferwise. It's pretty easy, the rates are decent and the fees aren't too bad in my opinion.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 10 months later...

How does it affect your mom tax wise? We're investigating doing a full financial emigration since we're sure we are going to stay here permanently but I still have parents back in SA we care for. I've considered sending a credit card they can use for day to day items but I want to explore other options as well.

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12 hours ago, CyberJoe said:

How does it affect your mom tax wise? We're investigating doing a full financial emigration since we're sure we are going to stay here permanently but I still have parents back in SA we care for. I've considered sending a credit card they can use for day to day items but I want to explore other options as well.

 

We pay for my mother in laws medical aid in South Africa, just do a monthly transfer using any money transfer service (we use WorldRemit).  Your tax status in South Africa does not determine whether you can transfer money there, depending on how much you send might have a tax implication for the recipient though.

 

The biggest risk with sending a credit card to South Africa will be that if something goes wrong with the card it will take a while for you to issue another one and have it sent over.  Card fraud is huge in South Africa and they will almost guaranteed have the card cloned somewhere along the line.  Happened to me twice before me moved over and I worked in the banking industry (super aware of what to look out for).

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Thank you @ChrisH  I'll do a few test runs transferring money directly to their accounts and see how it works out for them. With FNB I know you get a notification and then there is a whole process to determine which allowable category the international money is valid for. My mother is not technologically adapt so I don't have too much confidence it will be easy for her especially.

 

Cloning the card might be a bit of a problem but thinking of trying a pre-paid credit card that you can get from the Post Office here. Another South African I've met here has been using this for a while and said it worked out great for them. Accepted anywhere Visa / Mastercard is accepted and you can just Top Up the money from this side so its more like a debit card really.

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10 hours ago, CyberJoe said:

Thank you @ChrisH  I'll do a few test runs transferring money directly to their accounts and see how it works out for them. With FNB I know you get a notification and then there is a whole process to determine which allowable category the international money is valid for. My mother is not technologically adapt so I don't have too much confidence it will be easy for her especially.

 

Cloning the card might be a bit of a problem but thinking of trying a pre-paid credit card that you can get from the Post Office here. Another South African I've met here has been using this for a while and said it worked out great for them. Accepted anywhere Visa / Mastercard is accepted and you can just Top Up the money from this side so its more like a debit card really.

 

I use tranferwise to make regular transfers back to SA.

 

With Transfaer wise, You complete the SARB mandate on your end once a year and then the money is directly deposited in Rand into the beneficiaries account.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Yep, we use TransferWise to pay our employees in SA, and to send money over to the family, they have it in their account in a few hours, normally really fast

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  • 8 months later...

How would one send money to your own account if you don't have an address or an SA contact number anymore?

They request these on the SARB mandate.

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