Bali Expat Forum - Bali Travel Forum

Hello,

I'm sure if this is the right place to post this, so please feel free to move it.
I was wondering what UK expats who usew this site are managing or plan to manage their UK based pension schemes. Can you get you scheme provider to pay the pension to an overseas account in the appropriate currency, or do you have to transfer the whole scheme to your country of residence before you start drawing it? If you do have to have it transfered, who is responsible for making the transfer, is it your responsiblity or do the providers take care of it all for you?
I would be very greatful for any advice or experience anyone has on this, thanks in advance.

I cannot speak with 100% authority because I have only as yet made a few enquiries. Your state pension can be paid to any bank account where international transfers can be made so no problem there. However if you move full time residence to Indonesia there may be disadvantages in that your pension becomes fixed. Try the Gov.Org sites on the Web for more info.

Private pension schemes should also be able to transfer your pesion/annuity but there may well be charges for international transfers.

For me I will get my pensions paid in the UK and then transfer money as and when required to Indonesia. Hope this helps but my best advice would be to ask your pension providers directly.

Good advice, I agree. When I asked, though, the kind and informative people at pensions (yes, really!) also said that everything is about to change so "watch this space". The impression I got was, change for the better, i.e. more dosh and more flexibility in alignment with EU laws.

My payments are made to my home country account (Australia in my case) and then I use Internet banking to transfer to Indonesia as required. This works smoothly so far. I have to use what the call a "netcode token" - a little electronic gizmo that can fit on a keyring and generates a number for the login process. If I lost it or if it malfunctions, the replacement will get posted to my Aussie address so I could face a delay while I get hold of it.

And like all banks they charge a fee for the international transfers - so it is best to transfer larger amounts less often - they let me transfer up to A$5,000 in one go.

I hope this helps.

Ron, interested in your info.

I also have an Australian pension paid into an aussie account ( NAB).

I draw on that with ATM, but of course it is costly of each withdrawal.

You it seems transfer your money to an indo bank and can withdraw at any time without charges.

Could you tell me your banks at both ends you use and which bank supplies the gizmo. I dont fully understand how that works.

Thanks, Ned

Hi Balined,

My Aussie a/c is Commonwealth, and my Indonesian a/c is Commonwealth Indonesia. The fees I cop are:

1. Transfer from Aussie a/c to Indo a/c has a fee of A$22 regardless of amount transferred. If you transfer the max $5000 then this is an 0.44% charge

2. if I withdraw Rp from the Indo a/c using a Commonwealth ATM there is no fee. Trouble is there are only a small number of these ATMs in the south and none in the north.

3. if I withdraw Rp from a BNI ATM the fee is Rp2,500. The max you can withdraw in one go from an ATM with 50,000 notes is 1,500,000 so this fee is 0.17% - withdrawing 3,000,000 from an ATM with 100,000 notes makes the fee 0.085%. BNI is one member of some group that Commonwealth is also in and the fees are lower if you use an ATM of a group member

4. if I withdraw from a BCA ATM (BCA is not in the group) the fee is higher - I don't do this much but I think the fee was around Rp6,500 - so its not too much of a killer if you need to

I think you could use any Aussie bank (if they offer international transfers as an internet banking service) and do International transfers to any Indo bank - and the fee for transfer out of Aus would be similar. I have heard that some Indo banks charge a fee for receiving the money - but I have no direct experience. Also recent posts on this forum say that some Indo banks may "lose " the transfered money for some days and then when prodded "find" it again. In that sense the Commonwealth Indonesia is reliable and fast without added fees - but the scarcity of ATMs is a downside. Also BNI, BCA and others allow you pay things using ATM machines (like Lion Air tickets) while the Commonwealth is not part of this. However, the Commonwealth does offer Internet banking services on the Indo account so you can pay to other Indo bank accounts this way - I pay our Indovision and Internet this way - there is a fee of Rp5,000 per transfer.

Hope this helps

Thanks Ron,

The flexibility of having Comm. bank here is obvious. I am in Ubud and there is one ATM now operating here.

I am in the process of changing my NAB account to a 'gold account' and this one will allow me to make atm withdrawls anywhere in the world with no charge at all. Or so they say.

Thanks again for info.

Ned