Why the fee your bank quotes is the smallest part of a TT’s cost
A telegraphic transfer (TT) is how your company’s bank wires money overseas, usually to pay a supplier, a contractor, or an overseas invoice. It runs on the SWIFT network, it’s reliable, and it works almost anywhere. The catch is the cost: the flat fee on the quote is only a fraction of what your company actually pays.
If your business pays overseas vendors, SaaS bills, or contractor payouts, the fees add up fast. There’s a commission, a cable charge, a correspondent bank fee you can’t see upfront, and a margin baked into the exchange rate. That last one is usually the biggest, and it’s the easiest to avoid.
⚡ TL;DR: Telegraphic Transfers at a Glance
| Question | Quick answer |
|---|---|
| What is a TT? | A bank-to-bank international wire sent over the SWIFT network. Also called a wire or telex transfer. |
| What does it cost? | A commission (about 0.125%, min S$10), a cable fee (about S$20 online), and a correspondent fee, plus a margin built into the exchange rate. |
| The cost most businesses miss | The exchange-rate margin, often 1–3%, usually costs more than every flat fee combined. |
| How long does it take? | 1–4 working days, and you have to beat a daily cut-off time. |
| A cheaper way to pay overseas | Pay by YouBiz Mastercard at real 0% FX fees, or send an overseas transfer at the wholesale rate, no margin added on top. |
The flat S$20 on the quote is the part every business notices. The exchange-rate margin is the part that quietly costs more, because it’s hidden inside the rate rather than shown as a fee. That’s the line more than 10,000 finance teams now route around with a multi-currency account instead.
Table of Contents
- What Is a Telegraphic Transfer?
- How a Telegraphic Transfer Works
- Telegraphic Transfer Fees in Singapore: What Your Business Pays
- How Long Does a Telegraphic Transfer Take?
- The Real Cost of a Bank TT for Your Business
- A Cheaper Way to Pay Overseas Suppliers
- FAQs
What Is a Telegraphic Transfer?
A telegraphic transfer (TT) is a bank-to-bank transfer of money across borders, sent electronically over the SWIFT network. You’ll also hear it called a wire transfer or a telex transfer. They all mean the same thing.
The name is a leftover from the days when banks sent payment instructions down telegraph and telex lines. The wires are long gone. The label stuck.
For a business, a TT is what your bank sets up when you use its outward remittance or overseas transfer service. You’d reach for it to pay a foreign supplier, settle a vendor invoice, or send money to an overseas contractor. If your finance team has ever wired a payment abroad from DBS IDEAL, OCBC Velocity, or UOB Infinity, that’s a telegraphic transfer.
How a Telegraphic Transfer Works
A TT works by sending a secure payment message from your bank to the recipient’s bank, often hopping through a third “middle” bank along the way. No cash physically moves. Banks just adjust the balances they hold with each other.
The SWIFT Network, in Plain English
SWIFT is the messaging system banks use to talk to each other about payments. Think of it as a private network where every member bank has a unique ID and can send secure instructions to any other member. It’s been the backbone of cross-border banking since 1973, carrying tens of millions of payment messages between banks every day.
When your company sends a TT, your bank fires off a SWIFT message telling the supplier’s bank to pay out a set amount. Your account gets debited on this end, and the supplier’s account gets credited on the other. SWIFT itself doesn’t move the money. It just carries the instruction.
SWIFT/BIC Codes and the “Bank in the Middle”
To route the message, you need the recipient bank’s SWIFT/BIC code. That’s an 8 or 11-character code that identifies the exact bank and branch, like a postal code for banks.
This is where the cost creeps in. If your bank and the supplier’s bank don’t hold accounts with each other, the payment routes through a correspondent bank they’re both connected to. That’s the “bank in the middle”, and each hop can add a fee and a day.
Send a currency that isn’t the destination’s local one and it gets pricier still. The money may be converted twice on the way, often through a US bank when it’s routed in US dollars.
What You Need to Send One
To set up a TT, your finance team will usually need:
- The supplier’s full name and address
- Their bank’s name and the account number
- The bank’s SWIFT/BIC code
- A purpose of payment (some banks make you pick a code, like “goods” or “professional services”)
- For parts of Europe and the Middle East, an IBAN, a longer account number used there
Have these ready and the payment takes a couple of minutes to submit. Miss one and the transfer can bounce back days later, which is a real problem when a supplier is waiting on cleared funds.
Telegraphic Transfer Fees in Singapore: What Your Business Pays
A telegraphic transfer in Singapore carries up to four separate charges. Most businesses only see two of them on the quote. The other two are where the real money goes.
The Four Charges Hiding in One “TT Fee”
- Commission (or handling fee). Usually a small percentage of the amount you’re sending, around 0.125%, floored near S$10 and capped around S$100–S$120. Some banks charge a flat, tiered fee for online transfers instead.
- Cable or telex fee. A flat charge for sending the SWIFT message, typically around S$20 online and more if your team submits it at a branch.
- Correspondent (agent) fee. What the middle bank charges to pass the payment along. On a US-dollar-routed transfer it’s often around 15–30 USD (~S$19–38), but the intermediary bank sets it, so you won’t know the exact amount until it’s deducted. It usually comes out of the sum that arrives, so the supplier receives less than you sent.
- The exchange-rate margin. When the bank converts your Singapore dollars into the supplier’s currency, it doesn’t use the wholesale rate (the rate banks use between themselves). It quotes a slightly worse rate and keeps the gap.
That margin is the one to watch. It’s often 1–3% on major currencies, and more on less-common ones, and it never shows up as a line-item fee. On a S$10,000 supplier payment, a 2% margin is S$200, which dwarfs the S$20 cable fee and the S$10 commission put together. Our guide to YouBiz exchange rates breaks down how that margin works.
What DBS, OCBC, and UOB Charge
The three biggest Singapore banks publish these charges for an outward telegraphic transfer sent online. Branch transfers cost more, and business account schedules can differ from the personal rates below, so treat these as the baseline.
| Bank | Commission | Cable / telex fee | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| DBS/POSB | Online: waived up to S$5,000, then S$20–S$120 by amount | S$20 (waived to DBS/POSB accounts in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, and Taiwan) | Correspondent fees may apply on top; DBS Remit sends fee-free in 19 currencies but adds a rate margin. |
| OCBC | 0.125%, min S$10, max S$100 | S$20 | Cable and commission fees waived on online remittance until 31 Dec 2026; correspondent fees still apply. |
| UOB | 0.0625%, min S$10, max S$100 | S$30 (S$20 to Malaysia) | Outgoing INR and PHP transfers have a S$200 minimum; correspondent fees apply. |
These are the banks’ published charges and don’t include the exchange-rate margin or third-party correspondent fees. Fees change often, so confirm the current cost with your bank before you send.
Who Pays the Correspondent Fee? OUR, BEN, and SHA
When you send a TT, you pick who covers the correspondent bank charges, shown as three codes. OUR means your company pays all fees, so the supplier gets the full amount. BEN means the supplier pays, so fees come out of what lands. SHA splits it: you cover your bank’s charges, they cover the rest.
If a supplier invoice has to be paid in full, choose OUR so nothing gets clipped along the way. Underpaying an invoice because BEN ate into it is a common cause of chasing emails and part-paid orders.
How Long Does a Telegraphic Transfer Take?
Most telegraphic transfers take 1–4 working days to arrive. Same-currency transfers on major routes can land the same day. Ones that hop through a correspondent bank sit at the slower end.
Two things decide the speed:
- The cut-off time. Every bank has a daily deadline, often between 10 AM and 5 PM depending on the currency. Submit after it and your transfer goes out the next working day. Miss it on a Friday and the payment waits over the weekend, which matters when a supplier ties dispatch to cleared funds.
- The route. A direct transfer in the supplier’s own currency is quicker than one that has to convert through a US dollar leg and clear an extra bank. Weekends and public holidays, on either end, add time too.
The Real Cost of a Bank TT for Your Business
The headline fee understates the cost, and the gap grows with the size of the payment. Here’s how a single S$10,000 supplier payment breaks down on a bank TT:
- Commission: around S$10 to S$20
- Cable fee: about S$20
- Correspondent fee: roughly S$20 to S$40, deducted along the way
- Exchange-rate margin: about S$200 at a 2% markup
That’s roughly S$250 on a single S$10,000 payment, and about S$200 of it is the margin your team never sees itemised. Run a few supplier payments a month and the FX margin alone can quietly cost your company thousands a year. And that’s before the flat fees on each transfer.
⚖️ The flat fees are the part you notice. The exchange-rate margin is the one that actually moves your numbers, and it’s the one a multi-currency account is built to remove. For a full walkthrough, see our guide on how to pay overseas suppliers from Singapore without losing on FX.
A Cheaper Way to Pay Overseas Suppliers
If the exchange-rate margin is the biggest hidden cost of a bank TT, the fix is a business account that uses the wholesale rate with no margin added on top. That’s what YouBiz is built for.
YouBiz is a multi-currency business account with corporate Mastercard cards, real 0% FX fees, and unlimited 1% cashback on eligible spends, for S$0 a month. It’s a product of YouTrip, licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a major payment institution, and used by more than 10,000 finance teams. It changes the maths on overseas payments in four ways:
- Pay card-accepting vendors directly. For suppliers and services that take card, spend on your YouBiz Mastercard in 150+ currencies at the Mastercard wholesale rate, which closely tracks the mid-market rate (what you see on Google or XE). Think AWS invoices, Stripe fees, Meta ad spend, or an overseas SaaS subscription, all at 0% FX fees, and you earn 1% cashback on eligible spends on top.
- Send overseas transfers for the rest. For suppliers you pay by bank, send an overseas transfer from the YouBiz dashboard in 20 currencies to recipients in 150+ countries, with no FX fees and no telex-charge stack.
- Hold and pre-convert what you invoice in. Keep balances in 8 currencies (SGD, USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, HKD, AUD, and CHF) and exchange when the rate suits you, so a strong month for your invoicing currency isn’t lost to a bad conversion later.
- Pay a batch of suppliers at once. Upload up to 1,000 local payouts in a single file, so paying twenty contractors isn’t twenty separate transfers.
To be clear about the fit: YouBiz is a prepaid business account, not a credit line, so your company spends what it’s topped up. If you need working-capital float, pair YouBiz with your existing credit card and use YouBiz for the cross-border spend where the FX margin actually bites.
Your money is kept in segregated safeguarding accounts with partner banks under MAS Payment Services Act rules, separate from YouBiz’s own funds.
👉 Still comparing options? See our side-by-side on Airwallex vs YouBiz and Wise Business vs YouBiz, or the roundup of the best corporate cards in Singapore for SMEs.
FAQs
It’s the charge your bank adds for wiring money abroad. In Singapore, it’s usually a commission (about 0.125%, min S$10) plus a flat cable fee (about S$20 online). A correspondent bank may add its own fee, and there’s a margin built into the exchange rate on top.
Online, DBS waives the handling commission up to S$5,000, then charges S$20 to S$120 by amount, plus a flat S$20 cable fee. At a branch the commission is 0.125% (min S$10, max S$120). Correspondent fees can apply, and the rate carries a margin. Business account schedules can differ, so check yours.
The main ones are cost, speed, and how hard it is to undo. Your company pays a commission, a cable fee, a correspondent fee you can’t see upfront, and a margin hidden in the exchange rate. Transfers take 1–4 working days, and once a TT is sent, it’s difficult to recall, so a wrong supplier payment is a real headache to claw back.
Yes. Telegraphic transfer, wire transfer, and telex transfer all describe the same thing: an electronic bank-to-bank payment sent across borders over the SWIFT network. The different names are historical. Banks in different countries just adopted different terms for the same process.
There’s no cap or tax on a company sending its own money abroad. Banks follow anti-money-laundering rules set by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, so on larger or unusual transfers they may ask for the invoice or the source of funds. That’s routine due diligence, not a red flag, and a normal supplier payment clears once you answer.
Pay card-accepting suppliers on a business card with no FX fees, and send bank-paid suppliers through a multi-currency account at the wholesale rate. With YouBiz, card spend across 150+ currencies is 0% FX fees, and overseas transfers carry no FX fees, so you skip both the flat telex stack and the exchange-rate margin.
Usually 1–4 working days. Same-currency transfers on major routes can arrive the same day, while ones routed through a correspondent bank take longer. Miss your bank’s daily cut-off time and processing starts the next working day. Weekends and public holidays on either end add delay.
The Fee You Can’t See Is the One Worth Cutting
A bank TT does the job, but the S$20 on the quote was never the real cost. The margin baked into the exchange rate is, and on your company’s supplier payments it’s the line that adds up fastest.
For card-accepting vendors, pay on a business card with real 0% FX fees. For everyone else, send at the wholesale rate instead of a bank’s marked-up one. Either way, your company keeps the couple of percent a bank TT quietly takes.
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