checks don’t cross international borders cheaply. If I remember correctly from the last time I tried Barclays in the UK charged about £50 to deposit a USD check from a US bank.
£50 a month is £600/year. Rounding error on a going concern. Rounding error on a developer's rate. And worth less than the time an entrepreneur would probably spend trying to save half of it. Moving money internationally will always cost something. Exchange rates might eat more of a developer's salary.
It’s £50 a month in addition to getting ripped off on the exchange by the bank. Using a service like CurrencyFair or Transferwise would save someone thousands a year. There is also the hassle of having to physically deposit the check.
Also checks in general have gone the way of the fax here. I’ve seen only one in the last fifteen years. I would be surprised if people in their 20’s have never seen one.
The foreign bank generally had to do a fairly manual process to get a U.S. cheque cleared. This can take weeks. 7 weeks is a bit excessive, probably they are giving worst case scenario.
I'm not obsessed with checks. Writing checks is technically simpler and has fewer dependencies and distractions. This question exemplifies the cost of other approaches: the OP is spending time researching alternatives to a simple and proven solution. For what? Mostly appearing sophisticated at the cost of increased financial attack surface, secret management, and uncertainty regarding future availability of the business handling the transactions.
Solve the problem at hand by writing a check and moving on. In a year things may or may not be different enough to warrant change.
In my home country (Australia) foreign currency cheques apparently take up to 8 weeks to clear.
The bank my Thai business uses say it can take “up to several weeks”.
Sending a check isn’t solving anything it’s creating a fucked situation for the person you’re paying because paper cheque’s are an antiquated method of payment.
In countries outside the US domestic bank transfers are usually free or very cheap with instant - a few days clearing time (we pay about 12 baht on transfers - 38 us cents - scheduled two days ahead, or 20 baht for same day).
Even foreign wire transfers are relatively cheap - I made a $300 “donation” to an open source maintainer last month. I elected to pay the fees at both ends, it cost $36 (and that’s a fixed cost, it’s not % based) and arrived in a different country the same fucking day.
Edit: oh and despite you constantly claiming “no fees” for cheque’s, every bank I’ve checked said they charge a fee for processing a foreign cheque, and none of them specify how much. A bank fee that they won’t tell you before you’re in front of them in the branch is a fee that’s too ridiculous to publicise.
The OP did not mention foreign workers in the question. Just remote. Not trying to contradict your experience. Just clarifying the context of my answer.
