Wallbit - Santander - Transferring USA dollars into my Santander USA dollar account

[pmacay]

I was on instagram when I saw an ad for Wallbit.io a virtual bank that is working with Santander bank to make it easy to transfer USA dollars into your Santander USA dollar account. I've been using Western Union to transfer money here, and it gets converted into ARG pesos on the Santander end. This has been ok since WU usually gives a very good exchange rate, however, I'm always looking for options and to have a "backup" in case one transfer doesn't work, I have another way of doing it. And I am in the process of donating my apartment to my niece and the lawyer wants to be paid in USA dollars so I do need to transfer some USA $$$ here.

I opened a Wallbit account and it took 1.5 months for them to create the account, something about a delay because they were switching servers or something, it finally got activated so I thought I'd try it out. Looking at their fees it's all in Spanish, which is kind of weird because all the other screens are in English. Lots of "legalize" in the fees documentation but it looks like it's 1% to transfer dollars with a minimum of $5 for ACH transfers, and it looks like there is a .25% charge on Santander's end to receive the money. Then there is a bit about inactivity on the account and a $2 monthly fee if you don't keep $500 in your Wallbit.io account.

I did go to my USA CitiBank webpage and see that an international wire is only $25 USA. I tried to setup a wire, adding myself as a payee, however, it only asks for Santander's account number, not my personal account number. (see attached) I guess it gets deposited into Santander's main account, and then I have to notify Santander to put it into my account??

I know I need to talk to someone at Santander because their website is all "legalize" also about fees and transfers and very hard to translate for my particular situation. I'm hoping someone else has done a wire transfer from the USA into Santander and received USA $$$ into their USA Santander dollar account and can give me some information before I go to my local Santander branch to find an English speaking representative. I can speak Tarzan Spanish, but when it comes to complicated legal stuff (or a medical doctor) I really need to speak in English.

Thanks for any pointers!

Pete

 

[nikad]

I just went through the exact opposite situation: I have both accounts under my name and transferred from Santander to TD Bank, under code A07 and it went through within minutes, commission was 0.2% from Santander, and 15 usd on TD to get the wire. It all took less than 24 hours. My Santander account is dual peso-dollar, and in the US I received dollar with no further charges.

 

[pmacay]

I just went through the exact opposite situation: I have both accounts under my name and transferred from Santander to TD Bank, under code A07 and it went through within minutes, commission was 0.2% from Santander, and 15 usd on TD to get the wire. It all took less than 24 hours. My Santander account is dual peso-dollar, and in the US I received dollar with no further charges.

Great, so it appears this is not a difficult process any longer. What is code A07? Did you initiate this yourself using the Santander website, or did you need to talk to a live person at a branch to do a wire transfer?

 

[nikad]

Great, so it appears this is not a difficult process any longer. What is code A07? Did you initiate this yourself using the Santander website, or did you need to talk to a live person at a branch to do a wire transfer?

I did it all online through homebanking. There is a cap on the amounts you can transfer to third parties but if both accounts are under your name, you must use code A07 that has no limits and it gets processed right away, no need to talk to anybody and no need to show and papers, etc. Technically code A07 refers to accounts of Arg residents abroad.

 

[nikad]

I did have to enter SWIFT code and my account number. I see Citi has two services for international transfers, make sure you choose the regular one, not the one that requires you to subscribe.