Australia to Kazakhstan money tranfer?

How about VISA to VISA transfer or Mastercard to Mastercard t/f?

Thank you for the reply.

Is that a thing? I have an Australian bank Visa and a Russian/Kazakhstan Sberbank Visa.

Check with your banks if they do VISA to VISA transfer. Normally we do the transfer from here to an outside country, but should be able to the same the other way round. But do you have a debit card or credit card? Debit would be easier and cheaper to do the transfer and you could do it from an ATM or online. There is roughly 2% lost due to conversions and transfer fee, but its still better than Western Union and Money Gram.

Hi, thank you for the further explanation, yes, both my cards are debit cards, although obviously from different banks.

I will attempt to ask at Sberbank when I am next there if their Visa cards have this facility.

Cheers, Peter

Yep. In Aktobe there is one teacher from Australia and two from New Zealand (not the same but thought it was relevant) that use Visa to Visa successfully. You need an account in KZ, they use Kazkom, and a Visa debit card from your other bank.

Hi, thanks for that, my cards are both Visa debit, Sberbank in KZ.

Now the struggle of attempting to speak with the Sberbank staff ... their English speaking manager only lasted 3 months ...

Cheers, all the best, Peter

Book an appointment to see an English speaking person and get them to interpret for you. You may need to go to another branch to do this. reserve at least 1/2 day at branch. At ATM you can either use KZT of USD to do the transfer, and select English at the beginning. If you have online banking it should be reasonable straight forward process. Expect to loose up to 2% for fees and charges.

Thanks for that suggestion ... as I replied to a private message earlier ...

They did have a couple of English speakers, including the manager that was handling my account, they just don't have a great grasp of English (not entirely unexpected), the first one left three months ago, the new manager just left last week ... the number of times I had to return to get things finalised was beyond a joke ... any number of translations of documents ... 4 goes at getting my name right on the account and the card ... they tend to use Google Translate ... even in the various bureaucracies here in Ust-Kamenogorsk ...

I have online banking on my Australian Visa debit card and I'm sure it is there for my Sberbank Visa debit card too, but I haven't investigated that yet ... as it is just attached to a term deposit account harvesting the interest ...

As for going to another branch, unfortunately there is only the one branch here in Ust-Kamenogorsk ...

I'll probably try with one of the teachers at an ESL school I often go to to chat with the students, one of the teachers is a certified translator there and see if he'll accompany me to the bank (it is only a few hundred metres from the bank).

Cheers, all the best, Peter

Hi again Jaming, after inquiring in Australia with my bank, they said that there was no Visa to Visa card transfer system in Australia ...

I wonder if any of the people you work with are Australian and have used the Visa to Visa system of transfer (I note above, Art teacher man says that they work with an Australian, so perhaps if he might wish to elaborate, or indeed ask how this colleague managed to do it)?

I have e-mailed Visa a number of times, but with no reply, their web page link that claims to explain all does not work ...

Cheers, all the best, Peter

My colleague is from NZ a Kiwi and did the transaction from his KZ VISA (Debit) card to his VISA (debit) card in NZ and was successful since December and every month. Is your KZ VISA linked to a "current" account or the deposit account you have referred to before? I am really surprised that your Australian Bank don't do VISA to VISA transfer.
The Bank Transfer I referred to before is using IBANK/SWIFT (code). Again I am surprised that your Australian Bank don't have that available. You can check on your bank statement if that information is on it (somewhere). Which bank and type of account do you have in Australia? Also what bank transfer system do they use?

Hi Jaming and thanks for your reply.

Transfers between banks in Australia use some system of their own devising, and it works ok, but for transferring money out of the country, telegraphic transfers are used and Western Union or go to a currency exchange for cash, FOREX places only do transfers of the major currencies ...

All are exorbitant ...

I'm not sure that the AUS and NZ banking systems are the same ... the banking system in Australia is a very cosy quadopoly and it doesn't really surprise me that they wouldn't offer a useful method of money transfer ...

My KZ debit card is linked to my KZ savings/term deposit account (it takes the interest payments from the term deposit rather than re-invests them).

My AUS debit card is linked to my AUS savings/term deposit account (it takes the interest payments from the term deposit rather than re-invests them).

I suppose I'll have to just try to do one and see what happens (and hope that the bankomat does not retain my card because it thinks I am attempting some sort of fraud ...).

Whilst I was doing a withdrawal from a Sberbak machine the other day (with the AUS card), I selected the Transfer menu and it didn't reject the card ... I s'pose that's gotta be a good sign ... maybe ...

Does it request that the card number you wish to transfer to, or does it require the actual account nr? If the card nr, no problem, but if the account nr ... the Sberbank nr appears to be about 42 digits long ...

Again, cheers and all the best, Peter

Hi peter, Please see below website link regarding Australia banks and according to that information they do use SWIFT PDS :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_ … _Australia

Your bank in KZ should also have a SWIFT/IBANK code which you can do transfer to and from. Else fail use Western Union, which will get your money there within hours but at a cost.

I haven't use the VISA to VISA transfer yet so can't really help you much. As I understand it you should use your AUS VISA (online) to do the transfer to your KZ VISA. It may require a current to current account to do it as most deposit/savings account may not allow VISA transfer. Need to chek with your AUS bank. Which AUS bank do you have?
Are you now based in KZ or Australia and travelling to KZ regularly?
As I wasn't sure what is your status?

Hi again Jaming, thank you for your reply,

Whilst the SWIFT system may be recognised by Australian banks, the transfers are done by telegraphic transfer or Western Union and that is an expensive way to transfer money, especially via Western Union. I think the last transfer I did of money to the Kazakhstan Embassy in Singapore was for $80 for a visa.

In total, the cost to me was $173.45 ...

I am in KZ around 10 months of the year ...

Both accounts are equivalent debit card current accounts attached to term deposits ...

The Australian bank is a form of bank known as a credit union, my particular one (LCU) was set up for staff of the CSIRO (a federal government scientific research body) but is associated with one of the major four banks, NAB (National Australia Bank).

Again, cheers and all the best, Peter.