On 12 October 2026, KakaoBank, a mainstream Korean bank, decided differently. It launched a service that lets a foreign resident in Korea open an account from the app in about five minutes, no branch visit, and waives the fee on overseas transfers to its main destinations, which include the United States and China. On those routes the fee is zero.
When your UK bank quotes you around £15 on a £200 transfer and calls that "the cost", the same job has already been priced somewhere else at nothing.
One thing worth being plain about. KakaoBank has waived the fee it shows on the screen. It has not said what exchange rate it uses on the fee-free routes, and money can still be lost quietly inside a rate. Zero on the screen is better than £15 on the screen, but it does not automatically mean the full amount arrives. Even so, the news still carries one useful thing: the price was never a given.
The £15 your UK bank charges on a £200 transfer is a figure it set, and KakaoBank has set the same number at zero. The comparison is worth keeping in mind when your bank next tells you what sending money abroad costs.
Corrections
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