# wire transfer US to UAE



## rahzaa (May 2, 2012)

I need to make a wire transfer between US and UAE. I bank with Chase in US, and ENBD in UAE. 

Should I use USD or AED for wire transfer? 

I guess it all depends on the rate, but I think i'll get a better rate if I use USD and let the banks in UAE convert it to AED. 

I can of course check the rate with the banks but are there any hidden pros and cons for using either currency?

Thank You


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## saraswat (Apr 28, 2012)

rahzaa said:


> I need to make a wire transfer between US and UAE. I bank with Chase in US, and ENBD in UAE.
> 
> Should I use USD or AED for wire transfer?
> 
> ...


Get it sent in USD and then have it converted here. Works out cheaper, at least in my experience....


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## mehranR (Jul 27, 2013)

Exactly as saraswat said.
The conversion rate is terrible and chase was almost converting it at 3.2 instead of 3.66 conversion rate that I got here.
Also they couldn't add the Iban number in the correct field and they sent it as a message.
Anything over 100k will take about it a week to clear.


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## ATC-Guy (Feb 18, 2014)

Agree. Try to avoid transactions that make the US bank do the conversion. Just have it sent in USD from your Chase bank, let the emirates bank convert it. All American banks are horrible at converting foreign money. Example: if you have an emirates bank send a request to pull 10,000 AED from a US bank. Then the US bank has to convert it to dollars to know how much to deduct from your current balance, which is in dollars. They will give you a horrible exchange rate, and charge a fee to convert it as well in most cases.


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## Leverette515 (Apr 15, 2014)

This is a great thread! Thanks for the conversion tip.

Is there not a Chase Bank in Dubai? I thought I saw that Chase had a branch there, but now I can't find where I read that. We are moving to Dubai in July 2014 and hoped to keep the same bank in both countries.

If Chase does have a branch in Dubai, is there any need to transfer money? The banking setup process for the UAE sounds like a nightmare, so we were hoping that by keeping our Chase account we'd be avoiding some of that hassle. 

I guess that leads to my next question: are there any US banks who have a presence in Dubai?


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## ATC-Guy (Feb 18, 2014)

*Banking in Dubai*



Leverette515 said:


> This is a great thread! Thanks for the conversion tip.
> 
> Is there not a Chase Bank in Dubai? I thought I saw that Chase had a branch there, but now I can't find where I read that. We are moving to Dubai in July 2014 and hoped to keep the same bank in both countries.
> 
> ...


Hi Leverette!

Well, I just got here to Dubai 2 months ago. And It is a hectic experience gettig everything situated when you first get here! For example, when you get here, you'll need to apply for a Residence visa, after you've arrived under your work visa which your company should provide for you. You will apply for an Emirates National ID Card, then for an Emirates Driver license, and you cant open a bank account until you've gotten your resident visa or emirates ID or Labor Card back from the Government, it took me about 3 weeks after I arrived to get all that. There is a lot of leg work and waiting around involved. 
I found a Chase Bank Office here in Dubai, I do not know if this is an actual branch where you could deposit money and do teller transacations, it might just be an admin office or some kind of investment only office, you can check it out. HEre's the address and phone number:

Dubai International Financial Center, Sheikh Zayed Road
Gate Building, West Wing, Level 3 & 9
Dubai
971-4-428-1700
To dial this from USA You would dial 011-971-4-428-1700

There are HSBC Banks here. As you know we have HSBC banks in the USA as well. But the ones here are NOT affiliated in any way with the American branches, if you opened an account at an HSBC branch in the USA, you can't come hereto Dubai and do transactions at the counter as if you belonged to the HSBC here. It might be easier and cheaper fees to transfer money to your American account if you had HSBC but thats about it. I'm sure Chase Bank is the same here. I'm american but I work for a British company, they deposit my money only into an Emirates Bank Account, Its cheaper to just withdraw money from my bank here, go to any money exchange place (theres tons of them in every mall and street corners) and jsut give them your routing number, bank account number and bank name in the states and transfer the cash through an international transfer. I just sent 8,000 dirhams to my bank in the States this way. There is a 45 Dirham flat fee no matter how much you send, but they also make some money off the exchange rate, about 13 extra dollars from my math. But for the convenience of it, thats not bad. Most people do this about once per month. There's many different exchange shops here, some have better rates than others, but its best to stick wit ha big one like UAE Exchange or AL Ansari Exchange, as they seem to provide the best customer service as well. Most people also try to use the same bank their employer uses, when they get here, there could be extra benefits for that. I hope that helps!
Another thing is loans. Banks will give you a personal loan for up to 350,000 dirham just based off your salary, its a personal loan but here its also called a salary loan. Theres nothing backing the loan except your salary and your signature  Lots of Americans do this when they come here if they have debt to pay off in the USA. Come here, open an account and immediately take out a 350,000 dirham or 500,000 dirham loan just by signing a paper. Then send most of it back to the USA to pay off their debts, then pay that loan off in 4 years. If you have a lot of credit card debt, or want to pay off your house, that's a great way to do it. The interest rates here are pretty low. They won't give me a car loan here until I have at least 3 months of credit history, but they'll give me a 350,000 dirham personal loan..makes absolutely no sense, but that's how things work here. ha ha.. I already have two of the top credit cards that the bank offers in this country. The Emirates NBD Bank Emirates Airline Skywards Infinite card, I got this card just by applying as soon as I opened my bank account, and the credit limit is 50,000 dirhams..Jesus Christ..its amazing they'll give credit cards with limits that high but refuse to issue a car loan. As I use that card and keep paying it down, they will increase the limits automatically without any notification, I have an American friend who's been here 4 years and his is up to 100,000 dirham credit limit on that card now, that;s almost $30,000 credit limit. So now you know how some of this stuff works here..


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## Leverette515 (Apr 15, 2014)

ATC-Guy said:


> Hi Leverette!
> 
> Well, I just got here to Dubai 2 months ago. And It is a hectic experience gettig everything situated when you first get here! For example, when you get here, you'll need to apply for a Residence visa, after you've arrived under your work visa which your company should provide for you. You will apply for an Emirates National ID Card, then for an Emirates Driver license, and you cant open a bank account until you've gotten your resident visa or emirates ID or Labor Card back from the Government, it took me about 3 weeks after I arrived to get all that. There is a lot of leg work and waiting around involved.
> I found a Chase Bank Office here in Dubai, I do not know if this is an actual branch where you could deposit money and do teller transacations, it might just be an admin office or some kind of investment only office, you can check it out. HEre's the address and phone number:
> ...


Wow, thank you so much for your response! That's great information! I wondered about that Chase branch just being admin or investing. We lived in Australia and found that some US banks had offices but weren't really branches. 

One nice thing in Aus was that Bank of America was a partner branch to Westpac, so our ATM withdrawals were fee free. BoA has a few worldwide partners but none in the UAE that I can find, nor does Chase. Once returning to the States and moving to Kentucky, we switched to Chase because Kentucky doesn't have any BoA branches. My home state of Tennessee has BoA but not Chase. We will be relocating briefly back to Tennessee before heading to Dubai, so with either bank, we're going to be slightly inconvenienced! 

Anyway, there is not a local HSBC branch for us in Kentucky or Tennessee, so it sounds like we might as well keep our current bank and wait until we get to Dubai to set up a bank there. 

It's actually my husband who will be working, not me. From what I understand, he has to sign up for the bank account then 'allow' me to be on the joint account, which is funny to me because I handle our family finances!


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## Leverette515 (Apr 15, 2014)

ATC-Guy said:


> Hi Leverette!
> 
> 
> Another thing is loans. Banks will give you a personal loan for up to 350,000 dirham just based off your salary, its a personal loan but here its also called a salary loan. Theres nothing backing the loan except your salary and your signature  Lots of Americans do this when they come here if they have debt to pay off in the USA. Come here, open an account and immediately take out a 350,000 dirham or 500,000 dirham loan just by signing a paper. Then send most of it back to the USA to pay off their debts, then pay that loan off in 4 years. If you have a lot of credit card debt, or want to pay off your house, that's a great way to do it. The interest rates here are pretty low. They won't give me a car loan here until I have at least 3 months of credit history, but they'll give me a 350,000 dirham personal loan..makes absolutely no sense, but that's how things work here. ha ha.. I already have two of the top credit cards that the bank offers in this country. The Emirates NBD Bank Emirates Airline Skywards Infinite card, I got this card just by applying as soon as I opened my bank account, and the credit limit is 50,000 dirhams..Jesus Christ..its amazing they'll give credit cards with limits that high but refuse to issue a car loan. As I use that card and keep paying it down, they will increase the limits automatically without any notification, I have an American friend who's been here 4 years and his is up to 100,000 dirham credit limit on that card now, that;s almost $30,000 credit limit. So now you know how some of this stuff works here..


That's crazy about the loans! I never considered that we wouldn't be able to get a car loan and I haven't looked at car prices to see if we could afford to pay cash. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of interest rate are you getting on loans? 

One fear I have with having outstanding loans in UAE is if we had to be transferred again and couldn't pay back the loan in full at that time. I've read there are harsh penalties for outstanding debt if you have to leave the country within 30 days and can't pay the debt off. Do you know anything about that or if it's been as big an issue as I've read? Sometimes I have trouble distinguishing between what's an ACTUAL big deal or something that someone is just exaggerating because of their own fears.


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## Leverette515 (Apr 15, 2014)

One more question... well, one more for now. : ) 

When you entered the UAE, did you have dirhams on you or did you transfer money at the airport? Usually when we travel abroad, we will just hit the first ATM we see and withdraw the local currency to pay for taxis, quick meals, tips, etc. 

Is that something we can count on in the Dubai airport or should we plan to have to dirhams before we leave the US? (oh, wait... that's two questions!)


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## Mans4 (Apr 4, 2014)

Leverette515 said:


> One more question... well, one more for now. : )
> 
> When you entered the UAE, did you have dirhams on you or did you transfer money at the airport? Usually when we travel abroad, we will just hit the first ATM we see and withdraw the local currency to pay for taxis, quick meals, tips, etc.
> 
> Is that something we can count on in the Dubai airport or should we plan to have to dirhams before we leave the US? (oh, wait... that's two questions!)


You can easily change USD to AED on Dubai Airport with not very bad rate,


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## rsinner (Feb 3, 2009)

Mans4 said:


> You can easily change USD to AED on Dubai Airport with not very bad rate,


Thats awful advice given that the rates at the airport are truly ****e.


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## Mans4 (Apr 4, 2014)

rsinner said:


> Thats awful advice given that the rates at the airport are truly ****e.


I am changing most time 3.66 , for less amount to pay taxi and hotel its not big deal.
its much better then to use hotel at rate 3.5 or use the credit card with 2-4% charges.

Anyways if you want to change huge amount you can check Naief Road , usually rate there is 3.67


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## ATC-Guy (Feb 18, 2014)

Leverette515 said:


> One more question... well, one more for now. : )
> 
> When you entered the UAE, did you have dirhams on you or did you transfer money at the airport? Usually when we travel abroad, we will just hit the first ATM we see and withdraw the local currency to pay for taxis, quick meals, tips, etc.
> 
> Is that something we can count on in the Dubai airport or should we plan to have to dirhams before we leave the US? (oh, wait... that's two questions!)


You won't need dirhams before leaving the US. The Dubai International Airport has many ATM's and exchange counters just after you get your luggage at the carousel and walk past customs. In the arrivals area you could either hit up the ATM or just exchange your US Dollars to dirhams when you arrive. Make sure you call your banks in the USA to let them know your traveling before you leave, or they might deny your card transactions and you'll be stuck. I would suggest bringing about 200-300 dollars cash from the States to exchange at the airport just in case you cant get money out of the ATM right away. The other guys are right, the exchange rate isn't the best at the airport, but just for one time when you arrive its more convenient than trying to find the cheapest place downtown just to save a few dollars on the exchange rate. You can go to XE - The World's Favorite Currency and Foreign Exchange Site to see the market rate for any currency, or you can just type "convert 200 dollars to UAE dirhams" in google search and it will convert it for you as well immediately.
The interest on loans here is calculated monthly not APR (annually) like in the states. Usually depending on what kind of loan could be 4%--10%
I'm not sure about leaving the country with outstanding loans. I've heard some stories as well. I really don't see what's stopping anybody from taking out a huge loan and then just skipping out the country. Probably they would deport you if you ever tried to come back in. They've deported people for lesser things for sure. Most banks require a "Salary Transfer Letter" from your husbands employer stating that the employer could be partially responsible if you guys skipped out on a loan. I don't think they will contact InterPol or anything like that though. There is one guy I work with, that was put down as a reference on a loan for a guy that skipped out like 4 or 5 years ago and they're still calling my co worker asking about the guy that skipped out. That's about all they can do I guess. But if the guy ever tried to come back to UAE..he'd probably get arrested.


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