Stargazer
Surin Legend
If you transfer funds from a US bank to a USD Wise.com account, there is an ACH transfer fee charged.
Wise.com just told me it was NOT a Wise fee. I dug into this further, and discovered that it is, in fact, a Wise fee. Why did I notice? On a $20,000 USD ACH transfer, the fee is $33.40 USD. Whereas if you wire in, they only charge $6.11 regardless of amount.
With the aid of Gemini AI (which I use as a coding assistant along with Anthropic Claude), here’s what I found, and the workaround:
“When initiating the transfer from inside Wise (selecting "Add money" or funding a transfer via a connected US bank account):
Wise initiates an ACH Direct Debit ("pull") from your Schwab account.
For ACH direct debits, Wise charges a processing payment method fee of 0.17% on the funded amount. $20,000 USD times 0.0017 = $34.00 USD
Schwab is not charging you; Schwab processes standard incoming and outgoing ACH transfers completely free of charge ($0). Wise is levying the 0.17% fee for pulling the funds through their payment gateway.” So Wise has been charging me $100-200 USD a year for this without disclosing that it was, in fact, their fee. Maybe I’m just cheap, but I don’t like hidden fees.
Gemini AI also suggested a way to eliminate these fees entirely. You simply set up ‘pushing’ money from your bank, which in the case of Schwab, costs nothing. So in the future, I’ll just push money to my USD account for free (takes a few days) rather than wire it. I suspect similar charges are assessed on UK and other nationality transfers.
The moral is: do sweat the small stuff, which nibbles away your hard-earned retirement income. I’m going to have a talk with Wise about disclosing this fee.
Here’s how to set up a ‘push’ rather than a ‘pull’:
Get your Wise USD Account Details: Open the Wise app or website. Select your USD balance and click Receive / Account details.
Note the Routing number (ACH) and Account number provided by Wise (typically hosted through their partner bank, Community Federal Savings Bank / CFSB).
Link Wise inside Charles Schwab (or your bank):
Log into Schwab and navigate to Move Money > Routing Numbers & Direct Deposit or Manage Accounts / External Accounts.
Add your Wise USD account as a linked external account using the routing and account numbers.
Complete the standard verification (instant via login or two micro-deposits).
Initiate the Transfer from Schwab ("Push"):
Transfer whatever amount you wish from Schwab to your linked Wise account.
Schwab's fee: $0 (Schwab’s daily ACH limit is $100,000).
Wise's fee: $0 (Wise does not charge to receive incoming ACH credits/direct deposits).
Your bank may have their own fees. One reason I’ve been a Schwab customer for 50 years is that there are no annual fees, no matter how many separate accounts you have online with them.
Wise.com just told me it was NOT a Wise fee. I dug into this further, and discovered that it is, in fact, a Wise fee. Why did I notice? On a $20,000 USD ACH transfer, the fee is $33.40 USD. Whereas if you wire in, they only charge $6.11 regardless of amount.
With the aid of Gemini AI (which I use as a coding assistant along with Anthropic Claude), here’s what I found, and the workaround:
“When initiating the transfer from inside Wise (selecting "Add money" or funding a transfer via a connected US bank account):
Wise initiates an ACH Direct Debit ("pull") from your Schwab account.
For ACH direct debits, Wise charges a processing payment method fee of 0.17% on the funded amount. $20,000 USD times 0.0017 = $34.00 USD
Schwab is not charging you; Schwab processes standard incoming and outgoing ACH transfers completely free of charge ($0). Wise is levying the 0.17% fee for pulling the funds through their payment gateway.” So Wise has been charging me $100-200 USD a year for this without disclosing that it was, in fact, their fee. Maybe I’m just cheap, but I don’t like hidden fees.
Gemini AI also suggested a way to eliminate these fees entirely. You simply set up ‘pushing’ money from your bank, which in the case of Schwab, costs nothing. So in the future, I’ll just push money to my USD account for free (takes a few days) rather than wire it. I suspect similar charges are assessed on UK and other nationality transfers.
The moral is: do sweat the small stuff, which nibbles away your hard-earned retirement income. I’m going to have a talk with Wise about disclosing this fee.
Here’s how to set up a ‘push’ rather than a ‘pull’:
Get your Wise USD Account Details: Open the Wise app or website. Select your USD balance and click Receive / Account details.
Note the Routing number (ACH) and Account number provided by Wise (typically hosted through their partner bank, Community Federal Savings Bank / CFSB).
Link Wise inside Charles Schwab (or your bank):
Log into Schwab and navigate to Move Money > Routing Numbers & Direct Deposit or Manage Accounts / External Accounts.
Add your Wise USD account as a linked external account using the routing and account numbers.
Complete the standard verification (instant via login or two micro-deposits).
Initiate the Transfer from Schwab ("Push"):
Transfer whatever amount you wish from Schwab to your linked Wise account.
Schwab's fee: $0 (Schwab’s daily ACH limit is $100,000).
Wise's fee: $0 (Wise does not charge to receive incoming ACH credits/direct deposits).
Your bank may have their own fees. One reason I’ve been a Schwab customer for 50 years is that there are no annual fees, no matter how many separate accounts you have online with them.
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