Hello Nicholas,

Unfortunately if Wise temporarily suspends USD account details, you will need to go through other ways. Do you have any other foreign bank accounts (i.e. CIMB SG @ Singapore) for example? If so, you can perhaps consider converting your USD into SGD INSIDE IBKR (pay $2 commission to convert at SPOT RATE).

Once you have SGD inside IBKR, initiate withdrawal to your CIMB SG account in SGD currency. Then, use CIMB SG to send SGD back to your Malaysia MYR account (CIMB SG is one of the best rates for sending SGD to MYR). Do do research as well as rates may change from time to time.

Hope this helps!

Cheers
Gracie

Recently, I ran into issues trying to withdraw funds from my IBKR account through Wise. I encounter the error message: "Your Wise account is not currently configured to receive USD. Please log in at Wise and add USD account details."

While I maintain balances in both MYR and USD within my Wise account, I have learned from Wise that they have temporarily suspended the issuance of new USD account details. Unfortunately, they could not provide a timeline for when this service will resume. Could you please advise on alternative methods? Thanks in advance.

Hey Lee,

Form W-8BEN is a legal declaration document, just fill it up based on your current tax situation (i.e. US or non-US resident, etc.). Not sure which questions are you referring to, maybe you can type out the questions

Cheers
Gracie

Too bad I cannot attached the photo here 🙁

Hey Joe, glad you find this guide useful. For withdrawal, it is relatively simple - just log into your IBKR account and hit the "Withdrawal" button (next to the "Deposit" button).

Before you do this, you need to have clear strategy as to which account you will be using to receive the funds from IBKR and this will depend on what type of account(s) do you have.
- For example, if you have CIMB Singapore account denominated in SGD, then you'd want to first convert your cash in IBKR account to SGD (pay US$2 to convert currencies at near-spot rate)
- Once your IBKR cash are all in SGD, hit the "Withdraw" button, select "SGD" as the currency, and follow the instructions and fill up form
- Once you receive the "SGD" in your CIMB SG account, then you can use CIMB SG or Wise to send it back to your Malaysia account, depending on which has better currency rates.

Another simpler way which I prefer is to just withdraw to my Multi-currency Wise Account in whichever currencies, and then transfer it to my Malaysia account directly via my Wise account.

Hope these helps for now!

Cheers
Gracie

Hey CTH, from IBKR perspective they definitely do allow for inbound stock transfers - with detailed information available here: https://www.ibkrguides.com/clientportal/transferandpay/transpositions.htm

Unfortunately as I do not have experience with Maybank / SCB Investment Bank's trading account, you will have to check with them if they allow for outbound stock transfers, and also clarify the potential fees involved. Based on that information, you'll have to do some maths and exercise sound judgement to see whether if it's cheaper to transfer or just sell off all position and re-purchase via IBKR (hopefully within same day/hours to minimize price fluctuations).

When I was consolidating my portfolio into IBKR, I was researching the cost to transfer from Fundsupermart Hong Kong to IBKR US and it costs too much just to do so (since I have rather low volume) so I ended up doing the sell + repurchase thing.

Hope these helps!

Cheers
Gracie

It will be helpful, if you can further explain the guide on how to do the withdrawal, as you just showed the funding part.

thank you in advance

Yes Gracie, but just to share here that even if you hold UCITS, the broker (IBKR) is USA broker (Malaysians can only signup with IBKR LLC), so any USA brokerage account’s cash holding is subject to estate tax if the investor “dies” while having >=USD $60K in total holdings (Cash, ETF, etc).

Having said that, I think most people won’t exceed USD 60K, but some might, so just sharing for the benefit of all.

Thanks Vijai! Indeed a good point raised, this is why I opted for Ireland-domiciled funds for majority of my holdings to avoid getting the 30% WHT and also US Estate tax, since there's no treaty between MY and US.