You will need to make some payments at the time when you confirm your wedding arrangements in Bali. And most of you will need to do this from overseas.
You will need to make deposit payments from overseas
Most wedding arrangements will require you to pay some deposits for your venue and for other vendors several month ahead of your wedding. And often you will need to make also the full payment a few weeks ahead of your wedding date. The exact amount and policies will vary from company to company.
Credit Card:
For many brides the obvious choice would be to pay by credit card. And indeed larger hotels and some other companies will gladly accept credit cards. But for many other companies/vendors you will not be able to pay by credit card.
That has several reasons. Firstly credit card companies take between 2% - 3% of the paid amount from the money you paid. And let’s say you wanted to pay a several thousand dollar deposit via your credit card. Then the amount deducted can be quite significant.
Many Bali vendors may therefore either not accept credit card based payments or ask you to pay for the charges that the credit card company deducts.
The second reason why many vendors may not accept credit card based payment over the Internet is as follows: Indonesia ranks among the countries with the highest fraudulent credit card transaction rates in the world. Therefore it is very difficult or in many cases even impossible for small companies to obtain a licenses to accept credit cards over the Internet.
International money transfers:
Another alternative is to send a payment via an international money transfer to a bank in Bali.
An international bank transfer to Indonesia will cost you somewhere between 25$ and 50$. It will depend on from where you are sending the money, which bank you are using and some other factors.
For small amounts, say you want to pay your deposit for your makeup company, this may not be ideal because the transfer charges may easily be 20% - 50% of the amount you want to send.
International bank transfer charges are not dependent on the amount you send and are therefore well suited for larger amounts.
If for instance you pay the deposit for a villa rental for several days, then those 25$ - 40$ which you will need to pay for the transfer itself are relatively minor in relation to the amount sent.
International money transfers from European countries and from Aussie and NZ will take between 3 and 6 working days. Sometimes even a bit longer.
International money transfers are also quite safe as you will have prove that you sent money.
Most companies in Bali will only accept payments in USD or Indonesian Rupiah. You should check with the recipient in what currency you are supposed to make your payment.
Make sure your vendor in Bali gives you also the SWIFT code for their bank and don’t forget to ask what currencies their account can accept.
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PayPal:
PayPal has become the most widely used form of payment over the Internet. PayPal payments are for free for the sender and are instantaneous. The recipient will receive your payment within seconds you have made it.
You also don’t need to worry about currency exchange because the sender can specify in what currency the recipient should receive the payment. Whereas your payment will be deducted from your account in your home country’s currency.
However please note that PayPal has very bad exchange rates. They make huge profits on that.
PayPal has had some bad publicity a few years ago, but they got their act together. Nowadays it is perfectly safe and easy to make your payment via PayPal. PayPal may also be the solution for those who initially wanted to use their credit card but were turned down by the vendor in Bali. As long as you have a credit card you can sign up for a PayPal account easily.
And it is completely free.
However, on the downside PayPal also cuts over 3% from the amount you sent.
So, for payments below one or two thousand dollars most companies in Bali will accept that cut. But once your payment becomes several thousand dollars then the cut from PayPal will become significant and please don’t be surprised if vendors in Bali ask you to pay for the involved charges.
You can conveniently see how much money is being deducted by PayPal on this website: http://thefeecalculator.com/
Other payment options include money wiring companies such as Western Union and some companies in Bali accept that.
As you can see it’s not that simple how to send money to Bali. But money matters are usually not simple, are they?
Happy Wedding
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