ATM surcharges in Asia?
 

Do ATMs in Asia typically have surcharges?

They don't seem to in Japan.

same charges as you got here from ATM's not belong to your bank
 

Other than Japan, neither China nor Hong Kong has any surcharge, at least on Visa network. It is the same $1.50 I got whether I withdrew in Shanghai, or in U.S. if I use an ATM that doesn't belong to my bank.

But I have seen Mastercard network charges $3.00 international fee on my withdrawal made in Canada !

Other than Japan, China, and Hong Kong...Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia don't. I can't remember if Taiwan did or not but I doubt it.

Charges can be high in PRC
 

I spend 6 months a year in Qingdao, PRC. Most of the time, the only ATM's that I could get to work with my Bank of America debit card charged $8 per transaction. That is Bank of China and it is owned by the government. I get about $2500 each time so I can limit the charges. For most of last spring, I couldn't get any ATM to work. The government has designated one and only one bank branch and one and only one counter window in this whole bloody town to get a Visa withdrawl for foreigners. I used my debit card as a Visa and took a cash advance (because of the ATM problem) and was charged 65RMB for a service fee each time. Charges really add up!!!

Now, there is a new ATM in town - HSBC. Apparantly, they just received approval from the government to offer this service. My bank account now gets charged $2 for each transaction. Ah....foreign bank competition rocks!

I've used ATMs in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Malaysia. None had any ATM surcharges, other than what may be charged by your bank.

It depends on your bank account.
Refer to your account guide, and you'll figure out how much you need to pay for a surcharge to withdraw.
Even if you don't see any surcharge at the moment when you withdraw money from ATM, you might see a service fee charged to you later in your account statement.

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Also, banks usually apply higher rate of currency exchage than actual.
So, I prefer not to use my check/debit card in the foreign countries for the banks that I use.
Same for Citibank and HSBC when you use them outside the country where your bank account was opened.
There is no advantage for using international banks.
If you need some local currency, bring some US$ to Asian country.
Then make a currency exchange at local banks.
They usually apply lower rate of currency exchange than ATM, Travelex, ***.

I disagree. In my experience ATMs (using cash/debit cards, not credit cards) charge at least as good an exchange rate as you will get without a lot of shopping around.

On the other hand some of the rates offered by people like Travelex at airports are completely outrageous (sometimes up to 10% worse than the ATM rate).

That's still far higher than local banks or traveler's check.

I have never been charged an ATM fee by my bank for using ATMs anywhere in Asia with my US-issued ATM card. This obviously differs from bank to bank as most banks do charge a fee for using someone else's ATM (Citibank doesn't). The bank that owns the ATM may also charge a fee but those are few and far between in Asia.

In addition, I agree with christep re: good exchange rate when using my ATM card in Asia (or anywhere in the world). It's easy to calculate the exchange rate for ATM withdrawls in Malaysia (RM3.8) and HK (HK$7.8) and in all cases, the conversion occurs within 1% of the fixed rate. In my experience, that's about the same as walking up to a local bank and handing them US dollar notes, but far better than using Travelex.

The only downside to ATM cards is the hassle of finding an ATM machine in less developed parts of Asia and Japan. But it beats carrying traveler's checks or US dollar notes around :)

In my experience, I get a better rate using my US Bank's ATM visa check debit card to withdraw money from Asian bank atms. First, I have never been charged any surchage or fee by the Asian banks. My US bank charges a surcharge of $3.00 per international withdrawal, but adds no other fees beyond what Visa charges for doing the currency exchange (more on that in a moment). So to minimize fees, I withdraw the maximum my bank allows ($500) to get the most for my US Bank's $3.00 surcharge. (I know there are banks that don't charge any atm surcharge, but for other reasons not germane to this discussion, this particular bank is overall a better deal for me, so I live with the $3.00 surcharge.)

The reason ATM debit cards are usually the best way to go is because you get Visa or Mastercards commercial wholesale exchange rate which is better than the retail rate you would get trying to exchange cash or traveler's checks at a bank yourself. However, many are unaware that both Visa and Mastercard charge a 1% foreign currency transaction fee which they do not separately break out so you never see it, and this 1% fee would apply to atm withdrawals made with a visa atm debit card, for example. Even with this added fee, however, (and in my case, the $3.00 international atm fee my bank charges per transaction), it is still a better deal than changing cash or TC's. One should, however, ascertain whether your particular bank is marking up the 1% visa/mastercard fee by an additional 1 or 2% as many card issuers do (more on this below).

Btw, with respect to using a credit card to make purchases overseas, in addition to the standard 1% visa/mastercard fee for foreign currency transactions discussed above, most, but thankfully not all, card issuers (i.e., banks), charge an additional 1% or 2% on top of the 1% visa/mastercard charges them, and of course, they do not break this out so you would never see it on your statement, but it is in the fine print of your account agreement. The last time I checked about 3 months ago, the only card issuers that did not add any additional fees on top of the 1% visa/mastercard fee were Capital One and MBNA. So, for making purchases with a credit card overseas, Cap One and MBNA are the way to go imo. (Btw, Cap One has a no annual fee card that pays you 1% cash back on all purchases made with the card which cancels out the 1% foreign currency transaction fee.)