I'm sure this has been discussed before but I can't find anything when I search the forum. I apologize if this has already been beat to death.
I'm in the process of obtaining a pensioner's visa here in the DR. I am currently living in Sosua and have opened a bank account (as required for the visa). I am required (for the visa) to have my retirement pay sent to this account. I am in the process of making that happen. Until then, though, I need to send money from my US account to my DR account. A bank wire transfer is costly, so I'd prefer not to do that. I've heard some people say they use Remitly, Wize, or some other service.
My DR account was set up in pesos. My retirement pay will leave the US as USD and will be converted to RD when it hits the bank here. I checked the Wize site I mentioned above, and they do not have an option to send USD to RD. So, if I use Wize, would I just send USD to USD and let the bank here convert to RD, just as they will do with my normal pay? Or can I not use Wize?
Are there any other transfer services that you use and would recommend, and why? I'm thinking about fees, reliability, speed, ease of use, etc.
Off topic side note: when I'm posting something in the forum, it gives me the option to choose a Category at the bottom of the post screen. When browsing the forum posts, is there a way to jump into those Categories? For example, for this post, I'm choosing "Banks and finance". When I came to the forum to search for this question, is there a way I could have gone straight into that "Banks and Finance" Category to browse the topics?