I moved money between the US, Europe, Thailand, the UAE, Panama, Georgia, Australia, and Hong Kong.
Local accounts, fintech accounts, investment accounts, IRAs, brokerage accounts.
I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, and I’ve written about them here before.
Then a client of mine, a retired American, set out to move roughly $1 million out of the US.
Most of it headed for a private bank in Switzerland.
Everything arrived, and the fees were small.
But it took some time.
Sometimes, wires between countries route through a third bank in the middle.
Her US brokerage needed a month (!) to find the one person who understood how to send securities to a foreign bank.
And two bank holidays almost delayed a visa deposit with a deadline attached.
And still, every dollar landed exactly where she wanted it.
Today I’m walking you through that move from the inside, so yours goes faster.
We’ll cover:
Why a six-figure wire (almost) never travels straight from bank A to bank B
The transfer her US brokerage couldn’t complete for over a month
Five things that you should note down, if you plan to do the same
Before we start: every situation is different, and nothing in this article is financial advice. This is what happened to one client, and what her experience can teach you.
The plan
My client wanted two things:
Less of her wealth tied to the dollar
Banking spread across more than one country
(The logic of splitting money this way is in How To Move Your Money Abroad.)
The split looked like this:
Roughly $200,000 went into a three-year CD at a Panama bank, the deposit behind her residency visa there.
About $50,000 went to a second Panama bank.
And roughly $750,000 in securities moved from her US brokerage to a private bank in Switzerland, the first transfer of several, with more of her portfolio following the same route.
All of it stays visible to the US, of course.
Foreign accounts come with FBAR reporting, and larger holdings with Form 8938.
Before any of it moved, she had to pick a structure.
There are about five ways an American can set this up (that I recommend), depending on where your bank sits, where your assets sit, and who manages them.
If you want me to walk you through those five ways, we can talk about it here.
They range from keeping everything US-managed to going fully Swiss.
She went fully Swiss.
The decision took a few conversations.
Executing took months, and the rest of this article is about the gap between those two.
Takeaway: Every dollar had a destination and a job before it left the US.
The middle layer
Her first wire went from her US bank to the Panama bank holding her CD.
It did not travel directly.
Most banks in different countries have no relationship with each other.
So the money routes through a correspondent bank in the middle, a larger institution that holds accounts on both sides and passes the transfer through.
None of this is a red flag.
It’s how cross-border payments have worked for decades.
But it surprises almost everyone the first time, because nothing about a domestic wire prepares you for it.
My client had sent international wires before.
She still described the route as “convoluted.”
Her US bank, her in-country lawyers, and the receiving bank each walked her through the steps more than once before the money moved.
Each bank in the chain can charge for its part:
The sending bank charges to send.
The correspondent can take its cut on the way through.
The receiving bank charges to receive, and in her case the Panama bank took about $31.
On a six-figure wire, $31 is a rounding error.
On a small wire, those same flat fees start to eat real percentages.
Her rule now: never wire less than $2,500 to $3,000 at a time, so the flat fees stay small relative to the transfer.
She also checked whether Wise gets around all this.
For transfers like hers, it doesn’t. The wire fees still applied.
I use Wise every month and I’ve written about where fintechs fit and where they don’t.
Moving your life savings is a job for banks.
I would not use fintechs for those types of transactions.
One more thing to expect: after ordering every international wire, her US bank called to confirm she wasn’t being scammed.
Every single wire.
US banks screen large international transfers for fraud as a matter of routine, so take the call as a sign the system is paying attention, and answer your phone in the days after you send.
Takeaway: Three banks touch every international wire, and each one can charge you for it.
Bank holidays in three countries
The $200,000 CD was more than a savings decision.
It anchors her Panama residency application, and the deposit had a date attached.
(Why she picked that route over Panama’s more popular visa is its own article.)
Banks don’t process wires on holidays.
And if your wire passes through three countries?
Each one has its own holiday schedule:
The sending bank closes for US holidays.
The correspondent closes for its own.
The receiving bank closes for Panama’s.
Her transfer window happened to contain two bank holidays, and a wire with days to spare suddenly had almost none.
The money landed in time, but it was close.
Now she does two things differently:
Anything with a deadline gets a week of buffer.
Before she sends, she checks the holiday calendar of every country the wire touches, including the correspondent’s country (which is the easy one to miss).
By the way, the same thing can happen with a property closing, a tax payment abroad, or renewing your residency permit.
Always plan with some buffer time.
Takeaway: Give every deadline a week of buffer, and check bank holidays in every country your wire touches.
What her brokerage did not understand
Now the most interesting part.
The $750,000 sitting in stocks and funds at her US brokerage.
She did not want to sell them, because selling means paying capital gains tax.
She wanted to move the securities themselves, as they are, into the Swiss bank.
That is called an “in-kind transfer”.
Nothing gets sold, so the move itself triggers no capital gains tax.
Between two US brokerages, this is routine.
There is a system for it called ACATS, and it runs mostly on its own. You fill out a form, you wait a few days, the assets show up.
Sending securities to a bank outside the US works differently.
The Swiss bank is not part of that system.
The transfer needs the receiving bank’s DTC number (an ID for routing securities in the US system) and people on both sides who handle it by hand.
Her US brokerage did not know how to do it.
The first people she reached had never seen a transfer like this (her own broker doubted the Swiss bank was real, imagine my surprise).
Finding the right person at the brokerage took more than a month.
Once she had them on the phone, the transfer closed in under a week.
While all this dragged on, her securities sat untouched in her account. The delay cost patience, and nothing else.
Two things made it work in the final week:
First, the letter of instruction. This is a letter to the brokerage that lists every security she was moving and the exact details of the receiving account. If the letter is complete, the transfer moves. If details are missing, it stalls, and every correction costs days.
Second, the route. The securities did not go straight to Switzerland. They went first to a US sub-custodian bank (a US bank that holds securities on behalf of the Swiss bank) and from there into her Swiss account. That middle step is normal for this kind of transfer.
Takeaway: Most of the time went into finding the right person, and almost none into the transfer itself.
If you’re planning a move like this
I recommend writing these five down somewhere:
Start at your brokerage. Ask one question: who here handles transfers to banks outside the US?
Prepare the letter of instruction before you approach the brokerage. Work with the receiving bank to list every security and the exact details of the receiving account.
Give every deadline a week of buffer. Check the bank holidays in every country your wire touches, including the correspondent’s country.
Answer your phone after every wire. Your US bank will call to make sure you’re not being scammed (this is routine).
If the receiving bank works in another language, line up local help. An English-speaking banker at the branch is enough.
More than one way to do this
My client’s setup is one version of this.
There are more ways to do it than most people think.
You can go fully Swiss, like she did.
You can also keep your accounts in the US and have them managed from Switzerland.
And even money that has to stay in US custody, like an IRA, has options.
You can change who holds it and how it’s invested without moving it abroad.
Between those ends sit the five setups I mentioned earlier, and one of them fits almost every situation I’ve seen.
None of this is “hidden” money.
Every account gets reported to the US.
What changes is that no single government, bank, or system stands between you and everything you own.
The best time to start this is now.
Completing this process takes 1-2 months, and the sooner you have your money in a safe place, the better.
Takeaway: A residency gets you into the country, but your money setup is what makes the move safe.
What comes next
That’s it.
Moving seven figures out of the US took her months, and the hardest part was one fight with her brokerage over a transfer type they didn’t know.
Nothing was lost, nothing was frozen, and the money now sits in the structure she chose.
It required patience and people who knew the route.
Banks she trusts, and a guide who had done it before.
Where are you with your banking setup?
Reply in the comments, I read every single one.
Appreciate you being here,
— Ben
PS
The client in this story had help building her setup.
If you want your own money set up across borders (banking, custody, and management in the right places for your situation), book a call with me here.
The call is free, and you’ll leave knowing which of the five structures fits you.
This article is general information, not financial, legal, or tax advice.
Rules, minimums, and bank policies change constantly, and what makes sense for you depends on your situation, your assets, and your tax position.
Before you move money anywhere, talk to a qualified professional who knows your specific case.
I'm surprised that the bank checked for scams afterwards. I would think that would be too late. I understand them checking, but don't they have to check before the wire is sent?
I don’t understand why someone would do this. where’s the upside?