Hidden bank fees on international payments in Singapore (2026)

Key Takeaways:

• Hidden bank fees on international payments are mostly invisible. What you see upfront is the S$20–S$30 transfer fee, but the real cost is the FX markup that's built into the exchange rate.

• "No fee" international transfers from banks like HSBC and OCBC are not actually free. The banks drop the upfront fee and make it back through a wider exchange rate spread that you cannot see before you confirm the transfer.

• Airwallex prices international transfers at interbank + 0.4% for major currencies and publishes the margin upfront, saving you up to 80% on FX fees.

Getting frustrated with hidden bank fees in your international payments?

In Singapore, the issue often isn’t the obvious transfer fee you see upfront, but the costs that sit beneath the surface. Banks typically advertise low or even “no fee” cross-border transfers, but the fee is frequently built into the foreign exchange rate.

In this article, we unpack the real cost structure behind international payments in Singapore, walk through what banks actually charge in 2026, and show how much you could save by switching to Airwallex.

The S$25 wire fee is not what international transfers really cost

When your bank quotes you a fee for an international payment or international wire transfer, it shows you one number. That number is the transfer fee (also known as a "cable charge"), and it's the cost of sending the SWIFT message that moves your money.

This fee is usually S$20 to S$30¹, and it's the smallest part of what you actually pay. The real cost sits in three places the quote does not show you:

• The exchange rate carries a margin of typically 1% to 3% above the rate banks trade with each other.

• Intermediary banks along the SWIFT route deduct their own fees from the amount in transit.

• The receiving bank in your supplier's country may take another cut on arrival.

None of those costs appear on your transfer confirmation. They show up later — in the difference between what you sent and what your supplier received, or in the exchange rate that looked nothing like the one on Google when you checked five minutes earlier.

For a one-off transfer of a few hundred dollars, the gap is small enough to ignore. But for a business sending money to suppliers or freelancers every month, the hidden fees add up quickly.

What banks charge on a S$100,000 supplier payment

Say you need to pay a US supplier in USD, and you're sending S$100,000 from your business account. Here's what it actually costs through a major Singapore bank, compared to Airwallex.

A note on the figures: Singapore banks do not publish their FX markup on international transfers. The markup is built into the exchange rate they quote you. The example below uses a 2% markup, which sits in the middle of the typical 1% to 3% range observed on SGD–USD business transfers. Fixed fees are taken directly from each bank's published pricing.

The information in this table has been reviewed to be accurate as of 19 May 2026. Bank fixed fee based on DBS IDEAL OTT and OCBC Velocity OTT pricing. FX markup estimated at 2% — actual rates are not publicly disclosed and vary by bank, currency, and time of day.

Pay attention to the numbers here: the stated transfer fee, which your bank quotes upfront, is S$30. The FX markup, which is baked into the exchange rate, is S$2,000.

Out of every dollar you pay your bank on this transfer, more than 98 cents goes to a cost that you don’t have visibility on.

3 ways banks hide what you're really paying

There are three pricing patterns that Singapore banks use consistently across their international payment products. Once you know what to look for, they're not hard to spot.

Pattern 1: Bury the markup in the exchange rate

The bank quotes you their exchange rate at the moment of transfer, with no breakdown of how it compares to the mid-market rate.

The difference between the two is their markup — and because most customers never compare the quoted rate to the mid-market rate they'd see on Google, banks can charge a bigger markup and get away with it.

What this looks like in practice:

• The markup isn't listed in any published fee schedule

• Many local banks do this — they don't disclose their FX markup for SGD–USD or any other corridor⁵

• You can compare banks only on fixed fees (which are insignificant), not on the markup that drives the majority of the cost

Pattern 2: Advertise the fixed fee, not the all-in price

The bank drops the fixed fee on a specific product and promotes it as "zero fee" or "free." The FX markup stays in the exchange rate, undisclosed.

Common examples in Singapore:

• HSBC Global Money — fee-free transfers to other HSBC accounts in supported currencies, with the rate set by HSBC⁷

• OCBC Velocity online OTT — cable and commission waived for business customers, but the FX markup is separate³

This isn't technically wrong, but it is a distraction. There genuinely are no fixed fees on these products, but the problem is that fixed fees were never the real cost in the first place.

Pattern 3: Let intermediary banks deduct after the fact

When your bank sends a SWIFT payment, the money usually passes through one or more intermediary banks before reaching your supplier. Each one can deduct a "lifting fee" directly from the amount in transit.

Two things make this hard to plan for:

• Your bank can't quote intermediary fees upfront — the route can change from one transfer to the next

• The deductions show up on your supplier's end, not yours, so you may only find out when they flag a short-pay

You can ask your bank to use "OUR" charging, which bills all intermediary fees back to you — but this costs extra and the total still isn't fixed.

The better alternative is to use a provider that routes via local payment rails instead of SWIFT, which removes the intermediary chain entirely. This is what Airwallex does (more on this later).

What you're paying in hidden fees over a year

A one-off S$100,000 transfer with a S$2,000 markup is annoying, but not a huge issue. When you scale it across a year of recurring payments, though, that’s when it becomes problematic.

Here's what the same payment volumes cost through a typical bank versus Airwallex, over a year.

Annual cost by monthly transfer volume

The information in this table has been reviewed to be accurate as of 19 May 2026. Bank costs assume a 2% FX markup plus a S$30 fixed transfer fee per transaction. Airwallex costs assume a 0.4% FX markup. Actual rates vary by currency, transfer size, and provider.

These numbers assume a single recurring payment a month, which is a conservative approach. If your business pays multiple overseas suppliers — or runs payroll for international contractors — the real total stacks higher.

The point isn't that banks are wrong to charge for international transfers. They aren't. The point is that what you're paying and what you think you're paying are two very different numbers, and the difference only becomes visible when you look at the annual total.

How to read your bank statement and spot the markup

If the markup never appears as a line item, how do you actually know what you've been paying? The answer is to reverse-engineer it from your own transfer records.

It takes about 15 minutes per transfer, and you only need to do it once to get a clear picture of what your bank is charging you. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Pull three months of overseas TT statements

Open your business banking portal and pull the transaction records for every outgoing telegraphic transfer over the last three months. You need three things from each record:

• The SGD amount sent

• The foreign currency amount received (or credited to the recipient)

• The exact date and time of the transfer

If your bank statement only shows the SGD amount, log into your online banking to find the transfer confirmation — it should show both currencies and the rate applied.

Step 2: Look up the mid-market rate on the same day

The mid-market rate is the rate banks use when they trade with each other — and it's the benchmark every FX markup is measured against. You can find historical rates for free on:

• Google — search "currency pair" (e.g. "SGD USD 15 March 2026")

• xe.com — historical rate lookup, free for individual dates

• OANDA — historical rate tool, free with a basic account

Use the closing rate for the day of the transfer. The intraday rate moves, but the closing rate is close enough for this calculation.

Step 3: Calculate your effective rate

This is the rate your bank actually gave you, including the markup. The formula is:

Effective rate = SGD sent ÷ Foreign currency received

For example, if you sent S$100,000 and your supplier received US$72,600, that’s 100,000 ÷ 72,600 = 1.377

That means your bank charged you 1.377 SGD per USD.

Step 4: Compare to the mid-market rate

If the mid-market rate on that day was 1.35, the markup is:

Markup % = (Effective rate − Mid-market rate) ÷ Mid-market rate × 100

(1.377 − 1.35) ÷ 1.35 × 100 = 2.0%

That's a 2% FX markup, which on a S$100,000 transfer works out to roughly S$2,000 — the cost that didn't appear anywhere on the transfer confirmation.

Step 5: Multiply by your annual volume

Take the markup percentage from Step 4 and multiply it by your total annual international transfer volume. That's your annual FX cost, before any fixed fees. If your business sends S$1.2 million a year overseas, a 2% markup means S$24,000 a year leaving your account through the exchange rate.

For most Singapore businesses we've seen, the number is bigger than they expected.

Or: let an LLM do the math for you

If you want to run this calculation across multiple transfers quickly, an LLM like ChatGPT or Claude can do the math for you in seconds.

Here's a prompt you can copy and adapt:

I sent an international payment from my Singapore business account on [DATE]. I sent [SGD AMOUNT] and my recipient received FOREIGN CURRENCY AMOUNT. The mid-market exchange rate on that day was [RATE] (you can confirm this on xe.com or Google).

Please calculate:

1. The effective exchange rate my bank gave me

2. The FX markup as a percentage above the mid-market rate

3. The dollar cost of that markup on this single transfer

4. If I make this same transfer once a month, what the markup would cost me per year

A working example:

I sent an international payment from my Singapore business account on 15 March 2026. I sent S$100,000 and my recipient received US$72,600. The mid-market exchange rate on that day was 1.35 SGD per USD.

Please calculate: (1) the effective exchange rate my bank gave me, (2) the FX markup as a percentage above the mid-market rate, (3) the dollar cost of that markup on this single transfer, and (4) if I make this same transfer once a month, what the markup would cost me per year.

The LLM will return the effective rate (1.377), the markup (2.0%), the dollar cost (~S$2,000), and the annual projection (~S$24,000).

There are two caveats. First, avoid using this method with sensitive or confidential payment details that you wouldn’t want processed in a third-party tool. Second, LLMs can occasionally make arithmetic mistakes — so double-check the effective rate manually if the numbers look unusual.

Why Singapore businesses choose Airwallex over traditional banks

Banks work fine for occasional, one-off international payments — particularly if you only send a few transfers a year and the amounts are small enough that the FX markup doesn't materially affect your cost base.

But most Singapore businesses send more than the occasional transfer. If you're paying overseas suppliers or contractors on a regular basis, for example, you need a setup that prices transparently and saves you money. That’s where Airwallex comes in.

Here’s what you get with Airwallex:

Save you up to 80% on FX fees

The exchange rate you get on an Airwallex transfer is the interbank rate plus a published markup of 0.4% to 0.6%. There's no separate FX line built into the rate — the markup is the markup, and you see it before you confirm the transfer.

With our competitive rates, you also save up to 80% on FX fees compared to traditional banks.

Free transfers to 120+ countries via local payment rails

94% of Airwallex transfers don't go through SWIFT. They route through local payment rails in the destination country — bank transfers within India, ACH in the US, SEPA in the Eurozone, FPS in the UK, and equivalents in 120+ countries.

That removes the intermediary bank chain that drives lifting fee deductions on SWIFT, so your supplier receives the full amount you sent. 93% of transfers settle on the same day, and you don't have to compensate suppliers for short-pays or chase intermediary fees with your bank.

Hold and convert in 20+ currencies

Airwallex Global Accounts let you receive, hold, and pay out in over 20 currencies — including USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, HKD, and CNY — without forcing every transaction back into SGD. You convert when the rate works for you, not every time money moves.

That means you can take payment in USD from a US client and pay your US supplier in USD with no conversion at all, hold a currency until the rate is favourable, and run multi-currency P&L without reconciling against a moving exchange rate.

One platform for transfers, FX, corporate cards, and spend

Airwallex isn't a transfer service bolted onto a separate product line. International payments sit alongside multi-currency corporate cards, employee expense management, and integrated payment acceptance — all on a single platform with shared balances and unified reporting.

One login covers transfers, corporate cards, spend, and FX, so your finance team isn't switching between bank portals and expense tools. Everything exports into Xero, QuickBooks, and NetSuite for a single source of truth on cross-border activity.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

How much do banks really charge for international payments?

The stated transfer fee at most Singapore banks is between S$20 and S$30 for online telegraphic transfers. The real cost is the FX markup, which is typically 1% to 3% above the mid-market rate and isn't disclosed upfront. On a S$100,000 supplier payment, that markup can add S$1,000 to S$3,000 to the total cost — far more than the fixed fee.

Is DBS Remit actually free?

DBS Remit has no fixed transfer fee on payments to selected countries, which is what the "zero fees" marketing refers to. But the exchange rate you receive on a DBS Remit transfer still carries an FX markup over the mid-market rate, and DBS doesn't publish what that markup is. The fee is genuinely zero. The total cost is not.

What is FX markup and how do I calculate it?

FX markup is the difference between the mid-market exchange rate — the rate banks use when they trade with each other — and the rate your bank quotes you on a transfer. To calculate it, divide the SGD you sent by the foreign currency your recipient received to get your effective rate. Then compare that to the mid-market rate on the same day. The percentage difference is your markup.

Why did my supplier receive less than I sent?

This usually comes down to one of two things. The first is the FX markup, which is built into the exchange rate before the transfer leaves your bank. The second is intermediary bank fees — also called lifting fees — deducted by correspondent banks along the SWIFT route. Your sending bank can't quote these fees upfront because they depend on the routing path, which can change from one transfer to the next.

How much can I save by switching from a bank to a fintech provider?

It depends on your transfer volume and the markup your current bank applies. As a benchmark, a business making one S$100,000 international transfer a month at a typical 2% bank markup pays around S$24,000 a year. The same volume through a provider like Airwallex, at a 0.4% published markup, costs around S$4,800 a year — a difference of close to S$20,000.

Does MAS regulate FX markups on international payments in Singapore?

The Monetary Authority of Singapore regulates banks and payment providers operating in Singapore, including their conduct and disclosure standards. It does not, however, set a maximum FX markup or require banks to show the markup as a separate line item on a transfer. The markup is treated as part of the pricing of a commercial product, which is why banks can apply it without showing it on a quote.

Sources:

1.  https://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/rates-online/oversea-funds-transfer.page

2. https://www.dbs.com.sg/sme/day-to-day/payments-and-collections/cross-border-payments

3.  https://www.uobgroup.com/business/cross-border-payments/index.page

4.  https://www.ocbc.com/business-banking/payments-collections/international-payments

5.  https://www.business.hsbc.com.sg/en-sg/sg/article/worldwide-transfers

6.  https://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/deposits/pay-with-ease/dbs-remit

7.  https://www.hsbc.com.sg/international/global-money-transfers/

This publication does not constitute legal, tax, or professional advice from Airwallex, nor does it substitute seeking such advice, and makes no express or implied representations / warranties / guarantees regarding content accuracy, completeness, or currency. If you would like to request an update, feel free to contact us at [[email protected]]. Airwallex (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (201626561Z) is licensed as a Major Payment Institution and regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.