Pete88 wroteHello Scout and all
I were happy to see these questions / answers on banks etc.
I need some advice also please?
We will be building on some land at the end of this year that we are leasing in Bali and of course have will be paying the builder progress payments.
Transferring money from Perth to Bali I got 8,930 when at the exact same time the streets & banks are offering 9,550. I used Ozforex which was the best at the time.
What I would like to do is have the money in a bank account that can be drawn on in Bali to get the better rate. As we will be drawing down anything from $10,000aud upwards at a time it will exceed the normal day limit. Also it will be done in Bali with a trusted friend using the account to pass on the money to the builder. Or other option will be my friend to confirm all is good and I have the account ( joint maybe ?? ) with builder who can draw down the agreed amount. The agreed amount will be the maximum in the account at that draw down time. I just top up the account each time an amount is required to pay for construction.
My whole intention is to some how get the best rate possible to pay the builder. Any helpful ideas please??
Thanks Peter
Hi Peter,
I've only been living in/on Bali 3 months so have recently gone through the transferring money challenge from Oz and opening up a bank account here as a newbie. I don't have a kitas and I'm here on a business visa. I walked into every bank in Ubud and Permata was the only bank that let me open up an account without at least a reference from an Indonesian who is an account holder at the relevant bank. The bank manager at Permata was my reference.
BII bank was also very helpful and said they would let me open up accounts with a reference from an account holder, when I said i don't know anyone is there something you can do, they said if you have an Indonesian friend we can open up an account for them and then they can be your reference. Then they would just close my friends account.
Permata opened up 2 accounts for me on the spot, in rupiah and AUD and I've been really happy with the service. Much better than any Aussie bank I've been involved with.
I transfer the max daily limit from ANZ in Australia to the Permata AUD account and it's here no more than 2 days later, I even get an automatic text message saying the money is there. Permata charges $17 AUD for receiving the money in AUD.
Then when I need to or when the exchange rate is good I go to customer service and I get the "special" rate for the day, then they transfer the money across to the rupiah account. They call someone in Jakarta i think but who knows. The rate has always been within 100 IDR of what is displayed at various money changers on the street around Ubud.
For me it's working really well.
Hope this helps.
Gareth
