Sending money from Indonesia? Save up to 2.5x with Wise

An independent researcher compared Wise to the big banks, and non-banks in Indonesia. They found that we're up to 2.5x cheaper for sending money overseas.

What we researched

The research was carried out in Nov 2020 by market research agency, Marketing Research Indonesia, in conjunction with Wise. The data was gathered through publicly available pricing information and mid-market rate comparison data provided by Reuters.

The different fees recorded for this price comparison include cost to send Rp 2.5M, Rp 10M, and Rp 100M. The costs collected are made up of both the foreign transaction fee and any exchange rate mark up.

Research took place, over five working days in Nov 2020, on transfers from Indonesia Rupiah to USD, AUD, GBP, EUR, SGD, and JPY routes. The companies compared were BRI, BNI, BCA, Commonwealth, Mandiri, Topremit, Transfez, and Western Union.

What we found out

Fees to send Rp 2.5M to EUR

Wise: 39,646
Topremit: 96,182
Transfez: 100,029
BCA: 103,448
Commonwealth: 96,914
Mandiri: 89,506
BNI: 68,499
BRI: 111,191
Western Union: 251,359

Here, Wise is 2.89x cheaper compared to banks and non-banks.

How do we calculate the fees?

The data was gathered through publicly available pricing information and mid-market rate comparison data provided by Reuters. The final cost of the transfer is calculated as the total of the transfer fee and the exchange rate "markup". To find the "markup", we record the exchange rate each provider is offering. At the same time, we check the mid-market rate from Reuters. Then, we calculate the difference between those two figures.

For instance, if Bank A's upfront fee to send 1,000 USD from Indonesia is 75,000.00 IDR.

Bank A's exchange rate to send IDR to USD was 14,600, and the mid-market rate, at that time, on Reuters was 14,500, we’d record a difference of 100. This means to send for 1,000 USD the markup fee was 100 times 1,000 = 100,000 IDR.

So total fee for Bank A to send 1,000 USD from Indonesia is 175,000 IDR.

Journalists can learn more about this research by contacting our press team.

TransferWise Ltd is authorised as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) by the UK Financial Conduct Authority with registration number 900507, with passporting rights across the EEA. In Indonesia, money transmission services are offered by our partner financial institution, Instamoney, which operates under Bank Indonesia money remitter license number 11/5/DASP/2.

For full conditions of use refer to wise.com/legalstuff.