The Payment Service Act imposes limits on Singapore users of e-wallets (like TransferWise) on how much money they can send, spend or hold in their balance.
For personal users, this means:
- you can’t hold more than 5,000 SGD in your e-wallets by the end of the day Singapore time
- you can’t transfer more than 30,000 SGD from your TransferWise balance each year
Spending on your TransferWise card, overseas bank transfers, payments to business accounts, and transfers to other TransferWise balances count towards the 30,000 SGD limit.
Sending money from your TransferWise balance to your bank account, or to someone else's private bank account in Singapore, doesn't count towards the 30,000 SGD limit.
For business users:
- there are no limits to how much you can hold in your TransferWise account — the old limit of 200,000 SGD doesn't apply anymore
How do I know if I’m a Singapore user?
A Singapore user is someone who is a resident of Singapore, regardless of whether they hold SGD or not. These limits apply to personal users of TransferWise, not business users.
How does TransferWise calculate my total balance into SGD?
It’s possible that you’re holding other currencies other than SGD like USD, EUR, AUD, GBP, and more. We use the mid-market rate to convert all your non-SGD balances to SGD to determine your total balance in SGD.
For example, if you have 4,000 SGD and 1,000 USD. And the exchange rate is 1 USD = 1.35 SGD. This means your USD is 1,350 in SGD. So in total, you’re holding 4,000 + 1,350 = 5,350 SGD. As the new limit set by the MAS is 5,000 SGD, you’d have to transfer 350 SGD to your bank account marked as “external account” in your recipient list.
What's an external account?
Essentially, it’s another bank account you can transfer to when your TransferWise balance exceeds 5,000 SGD (or equivalent). You’ll have to add this bank account as the recipient and mark it as your external account. This account can be a SGD, USD, GBP, EUR, AUD or NZD account.
If you forget to transfer across when your balance exceeds 5,000 SGD, we’ll automatically transfer to your bank account marked as “external account”. The fees to convert (if needed) and withdraw money will be the usual TransferWise fees.
How do I set up an external account?
- Log in to the TransferWise website (this won't work on the app)
- Go to Recipients
- Add or select the bank account you’d want to mark as your external account