Bitcoin Forum

Our "beautifull" banking system @ work.

I ordered 2 nice pances from a tailor which I befriended in Thailand. I transferred 4000 bath (108 euro's) and ask the bank to let me pay for the transaction.... Boy did I regret that :)

The billed me for 32 euro's, only for the transfer, but now the best part, the guy in Thailand only recieved 3900 bath!? So eventhough I paid the FULL transaction, they still deducted 100 bath from this poor guy's account!!

This remains the biggest chance for crypto. There should be a global organization dedicated to promote bitcoin as a means to transfer funds in low wage countries. This guy is gonna try bitcoin next order, simply because I explained it to him as a way to avoid those ridiculous high costs for creating numbers in a computer out of thin air...

In short, how could we as a community promote this. If you look at the enormous marketing budgets from services as paypal or western union, with their same ridiculous fees, how can we make a fist to something like that?

What are your ideas?

what bank account do you have? because with deutesche bank i'm paying zero on everything on every transaction and on every withdrawal from any atm

the only fee is associated with conversion rate, when you want to deal with different fiat money, but this is normal

If I understand you correctly you transfered the money from your country via your bank to his account? You did not use MoneyGram or WU?
Well many companies are already addressing the remittance market, for example BitPay.
The best way to do this, would be for you to help him setup a Bitcoin address with a exchange, and then transfering the money to him via Bitcoin. It's just a pity he has to convert it back to fiat, it would be so much easier if the merchant/tailor accepted Bitcoin too. ^hmf^

Your confusing this with IBAN transfers, those are free within the EU, international banking transfers sadly, no :( I understnad conversion rates, but over 30 euro's, really!?

My thought exactly, this is nothin more or less than what the maffia does, fucking "legitamite" banking cartels...

32 is way too much, but with some research i discovered that up to 20-25 is a normal price depend on your bank

i've also read that if there is some errors in your disposal, there is a penality of 10 euro, you have written  everything in the right way?

You can get free withdrawls from any ATM with Deutsche Bank? From a Sparkasse too?

I have a Deutsche Bank account and get changed if I send money abroad, but the amount that arrives has been correct, i foot the bill.

A better idea would be to pay the bank a visit, ask the manager what went wrong and talk more detail into it. Maybe the procedures done by you had a flaw and you were fined for it, or maybe it might even be an honest mistake by a bank and you should talk to them once. And if everything was done properly, sue the bank in the citizen protection court for shit load of money from the bank ;)

No it simply are the rates for international transfers, most banks charge a percentage, not even a fee, it's dependant how high the amount is, it can go up to 150 euro's, ridiculous.

i didn't tried from sparkasse but until now it was always zero from the AT that i tried, it is also written in their document that there is zero fees on everything in  the euro zone

And you haven't taken into consideration the hidden fees. What I hate about banks is that they will hide behind their Terms and Conditions and I bet most individuals, an average daily user like myself didn't even notice that the fees existed. And you haven't consider the fact that there are millions of users using their services each day and the small amount will really pile up.

In Canada the banking fees really suck because my Hubby has to pay 20 bucks a month just for a normal checking account if the balance is under 100 Canadian dollars lol. At least here in Cyprus all my banking is Free unless I need to do a bank transfer and now with bacs it is much cheaper. I don't know why Canadian banking is so far behind and expensive lol.

If it was a small amount, I wouldn't be complaining, but on a transaction of 100 euro, 32 euro's fee's, what the fuck!? Mafia.....

That fee is high without doubt. But all the banks (less or more) have fee in sending or receiving money. You think that they must use bitcoin to do such transactions or same people must sent bitcoin when sending money? Maybe it will be the same. Bitcoin it is nor real money so you must convert for sure your fiat money in bitcoin to make the sending process and then the other part must convert the bitcoin in the needed fiat currency. The change of bitcoin maybe can be the same cost as sending the real money.

What surprises me here is that OP made a transfer without checking how much the fee would be. I make bank transfers every week, and I always check before hand. To make international transfers, most bank ask for a percentage of the transaction with a cap at both ends. It can be $10 on the bottom end and $150 on top.

Some customers may get reduced rates if the transfer is between 2 accounts within the same bank. Say, it's cheaper to make a transfer between an HSBC account in London to another HSBC account in Hong Kong, than to make the same transfer from HSBC in London to Citibank in New York, but BTC is the cheapest option by far.

bank fees ,and credit card fees,thats why bitcoin is used and the main thing it were created to make those fees be fair and make our money worth more then it currentlu worths

I checked afterwards, it wouldn't make much different because there is little to no difference between banks policies and fees. Some have a slight lower cap, some higher, but for my amount this wouldn't have made any difference sadly...

On a positive note, the pance fits like a glove :)

You would be more surprised, if you knew how little percentage of people really know anything about the fee's and the interest banks charged. My company recently invited a bank to present their products to the employees. During the presentation, the rep asked people, what fee's they were paying on different transactions. Only 1 out of the 500 employees who attended, had information on his banks tarrifs and fee's.

People complain, but they seldom investigate further into cheaper alternatives. They just get used to it, and then they start to budget for it. When I pitch Bitcoin to people, I normally ask them about their banking fee's, and most of them just guess how much the total monthly fee is, they do not know the individual charges.  :o

Well, your 'no fee' privileges are limited for sure. They are restricted to be only in your country or maybe Eurozone in Deutsche bank feel generous.
If you try to pay for something you buy far away - maybe like Op in Thailand - I am sure that the fees would be devastating.
And secondly there are are different rules for supposedly the same Bank located different countries, so Deutche Bank in France could have different fees that in Greece etc.

we need a service like transferwise that works with BTC!
That would be awesome.
SO come on devs... do that

Oh boy, banks.. The fees, ok i can understand it, every bank has similar fees but the -100 bath? That's actually robbery, you should have made a complaint because that is not fucking normal.

You don't use it, simple. You "boycott" their services and promote something that goes directly against it...(Bitcoin  ;))

To add to this, any type of service, whether it be PayPal or Western Union, has extreme fees sending international payments. Between conversion fees with currencies and cuts the service takes, you're looking at a major cut in all outgoing transactions. Nothing compared to the miners fee, though.

It will be a good way if all people were aware of the problem. But people are being oblivious and kept in the dark. They are living in the scheme of economic slavery and we need to teach them that old system is not helping them and instead is robbing them from their money. If 10 or 20 people boycott bank services it won't be enough...

yeah you're right but i would not buying anything outside from euro, and not because of the fees(which can rise to 25 euro or around that) but because of the customs that might blocks my items and force me to pay much more than a mere 25 euro...

You state it so simple, but the reality is that a fraction of the population has acces to equipment capable of Bitcoin mining or transfers. Most people in Thailand don't even have a computer, so your option isnt a option my friend, not everybody can accept, trade and exchange Bitcoin.... Still a long way to go :) Boycotting is simply not allways a option...

Not necessarily Bitcoin mining, but just accepting Bitcoin. You can accept Bitcoin from a mobile phone if needed. The point I'm making is no one is forcing you to use the services of PayPal, WU, ect. If you don't like the fees, don't use it, and use Bitcoin instead. If you don't have a computer or mobile phone, fees should not be your worry. I a state like that I doubt the person would be sending and receiving transactions (internationally) frequently enough for fees to even make a notable difference. As far as the whole boycotting goes, I didn't mean this in a literal sense as you should go and "protest" or something along those lines. PayPal and WU are huge companies to where they don't need the business of the OP to make any difference to them. In a bigger picture though, sometime in the future when public acceptance of Bitcoin exists, these companies will have a rough time competing therefore they'll be forced to adjust fees and such.

I think you mean SEPA transfers. I think even then you have to pay some fee. Banking infrastructures are huge monsters that need a lot of cash to be maintained. Im sure you are paying one way or another if indirectly throught fees, through somewhere else. Everyone pays the banks if you use a bank.

I understand what you mean, and you're right for the most part. My point is that not everyone can use this, due to knowhow or lack of resources. I never use Paypal, banks, or Creditcards unless I really have to, and the problem is, I HAVE TO use them so ridiculously much to get anything done abroad....

Yes, this is the very big chance of Bitcoin, not the only one but the big one. For example, poor people in Africa that are 100s of miles away from a bank branch is another nice opportunity.

But yes, banks are getting out of control with their fees. This poor guy needs to go to his bank and tell them if they don't give him his money back and charge him a reasonable fee, that he will change a bank completely. This usually works.

Yeah if you're looking to transfer abroad, banks are usually the least attractive option, to say the least.

It's ridiculous and a scam. It's clear now that the banksters have been charging over exaggerated fees with the excuse of "running a bank is expensive, we need to charge customers to keep things working". Well, guess what, now we have BTC, no more excuses left for them. It's game over.

If only it was that simple, but the reality is that much of our infrastructure isn't build for bitcoin/blockchain YET!!

What infrastructure? The infrastructure is already built (the internet). All we need is keep improving the software, making it more accessible, and make it spread around the world. If anything, the infrastructure is simply nodes.

Read what has been wroten in the thread, people in developing countries dont have acces to tech, they only have (oldschool) phones and banks, so no not evrywhere is the infrastructure...

let's hope they will embrace the blockchain tech then, so they can reduce their fee and time, and not having stupid excuse to charge you those ridiculous high amount for fees

but something is telling me that they will not change anything on that side, bitcoin or any stable altcoin will always be the better choice for this matter

Uhm, IBM Apple Samsung and a few banks are allready researching and implementing the blockchain, THIS will de biggest challenge, soon banks or other companies will launch their own "coin", and I thinkl the masses will go for that, since it's "safe", just like the financial crisis....

And even if they did you still need people to accept bitcoin as a payment method, it doesnt matter if you have bitcoins if you can't spend them and lets be honest, right now you cant live just by having bitcoins, you will have to convert them into fiat at some point.

You think that the current bank fees are justified by the amount of work bank need to go through to send your money from one place to another?
If you establish system, bank transfers are fast and requires almost no maintenance. High fees are only for bank to earn more money.
I am sure that after blockchain tech will be incorporated in bank tech fees won't go down, instead banks will find way to charge even more because of: 'new and faster tech'.

The more you have at a bank the better they treat you, and the less fees you pay.   I was surprised on a car loan myself the insane interest both the car company and bank wanted, I cannot remember the exact amount but it was not cheap.

I ended up having a co-signer (family member) who knew I would pay and I got zero interest.  So zero interest for 5 years is much better.

Only thing they did that got me mad they hit my credit history multiple times.  When I asked why they did it multiple times.... the car finance guy said to see if he could get me a better rate on the loan.... needless to say he did not find a rate better then zero.

Your bank's 32€ is crazy high and the 100 bath was probably imposed by his bank on incoming international transactions. However, there is a way in the transfer options where you pay both the sender's and recipient's fees. SO the amount you send will be the amount received and the fees will be billed to you separately.

(Bank of Scotland, no fees at all, I can use any ATM in the UK without charge even if I pick up 20 pounds 20 times a day. Free for sending money, of course free for receiving. If I send money within the UK, the recipient gets in within an hour or so. Haven't tried sending abroad yet I think.)

As I see currently bitcoin could be the perfect use case in such scenarios. Don't use it as a store of value due to volatility, but exchange fiat on end A for Bitcoins, transfer, immediately exchange to fiat on end B. Unless some major event happens, the exchange values should be reasonably close at the two ends. You should probably also talk to your bank and ask them about the fees.

Get rid of banking dude..Why you need a bank if you have a bitcoin  ;D Just ask them keep shit out of it..I don't remember when I visited my bank last. I simply avoid their phone calls too, they keep on calling me to buy a new credit card..and I simply say them I don't need a credit card, I have bitcoins..and the reply from the other end would be What Is that???  ;D ;D

One of the reasons Western Union will be one of the first to go as the first victim of Bitcoin's superiority is the fact they are charging ridiculous fees to poor people all over the world to do transactions. They are the culprit of billions of unbanked people. After Bitcoin, a person with a nokia SMS phone will be able to be his/her own bank. Game over banksters, Bitcoin makes all of you deprecated.

That's a good one. WU indeed charges crazy fees for sending money around the world, had some experience with them. As said previously, Bitcoin could be the perfect option to convert fiat, send BTC and convert again.


There are actually already existing and widespread banking/payment system that can be used with phones (not only smartphones) for example in Africa. And then there is also https://www.37coins.com/ (https://www.37coins.com/) for sending Bitcoins via Phone. It could be a valid option, although the banking system has a strong foothold in our world and it is hard to replace a well-developed system.

This will be the case only if Bitcoin doesn't get ruined by 1MBsters. If we don't increase the blocksize and the "let a fee market" develop ideology sticks, then Bitcoin will become an elitist speculation asset basically. The 6 billion people will remain unbanked, and you'll be able to thank all the idiots that concluded 1MB forever was the way to go.

Polish banks were charging 2% from any card trasactions,whatever debit credit,can you imagine what incomes thay had,there is 38mln polish citzens,about 28 mln adult,now thay are charging 0.5% also not bad
it is stealing

Sure. For this the have banned bitcoin. And are fighting it with every tool they have. Their fees are to high and they benefit from their very wide network to maintain those high. People in need to send money to their parents in the country of origin have nothing to do except to accept those. Have no other way to send remittances in their country of origins where have all their families. In the poor countries to many families are maintained with the money of one or two members of the family which work in one developed country.

Citizen goes to his bank, deposits his money. Let's say 1000$, now govt looks at his transaction history and then decide how much of his money can be used to given as loans. The 200$ is saved at bank while the 800$ is used as a loan. The money banks make by giving loans credits maximum profit for them. Then transaction charges and all those office work they do, and they put service charge, that shit too accounts millions of money to them monthly for the billion bank users worldwide.

Fractional banking, it's a fucking crime, any other person would be indicted for fraud, yet the system remains in place...