Hi, I want to do my first trade on Bisq, specifically to buy some BTC via SEPA transfer. However my bank offers two fee options to choose from: SHA and OUR.
Which one do I choose?
I’ve only seen these two options mentioned on the Wiki’s page about SWIFT transfers (it says to choose SHA). What about non-SWIFT transactions?
Welcome to Bisq 
It should be OUR
Ie. your bank will pay all the fees.
Most banks do not charge to send / receive SEPA.
had to look for this, learnt there’s also a BEN. Yes, SEPA is usually free of charge, so that’s why I’ve never bumped into this choice before.
Thanks for your replies. So I will choose OUR.
Even when I make a domestic transfer to another bank in my country, the ebanking page says something along the lines that the “transfer is elligible for SEPA”. However I always pay a fee, and the receiving end also pays a fee (I usually choose SHA). So I was thinking that if I choose OUR to make a transfer to a bank in another country the fees that I’ll pay will be significantly higher. Has anyone made SEPA transfers to other countries with the option OUR selected and hasn’t paid any fees at all?
P.S. I just remembered I’ve made a transfer to another country in the past and there was also a note about the transfer being “elligible for SEPA” but in the end I paid a fee which was higher than the standard domestic fee (and I had chosen SHA)
I do not think I have ever paid a fee for a SEPA transfer to another SEPA country. I thought it was part of the SEPA agreement that banks with access to it can send money freely to each other.
Maybe have a look for another bank that you can use for SEPA trades that gives you free transfers.
My two usual banks, one in Europe and one in Switzerland, only allowed me to do SHA option. One banks charged only 0.3 euros per SEPA transfer regardless the transfer amount.
Also, Wise (formely transferwise) charges 0.28 euros per SEPA transfer also regardless the transfer amount.
I hope your bank fee is also such small.
I am with Pazza as in my bank will not ask for any fee for SEPA transfers, no matter the destination country; I did have to pay fees with SEPA from Wise, but I’ve always considered those as a generic service cost because Wise is not a real bank but rather a payment service
It might be that people outside the EU zone have less choice when it comes to signing up for a SEPA account. In these cases banks they have access to might charge fees for SEPA transfers.
Check out list of other banks here for an idea of some crypto friendly banks: https://moonbanking.com/ and choose one that has free SEPA transfers and preferable also free SEPA Instant for your Bisq trades.
I’d like to inform anyone interested in this topic that I have used SHA in all my transactions and had no problems.
Initially I was going to use OUR just to be safe (which would require a fee of approximately 20 EUR!!) but my banking site notified me in a popup that when choosing OUR the transfer is apparently not considered SEPA for some reason. Deselecting OUR and selecting SHA again, makes the transfer a SEPA one. I don’t know why that is, but I’m glad because I didn’t have to pay for that absolutely ridiculous fee. I did pay the small standard fee incurred on all outgoing transactions to accounts that do not belong to my bank.
I also recall finding somewhere buried in the Bisq docs, something along the lines of “fees incurred on incoming transfers should be handled by the receiving party”. But for the life of me I cannot find the link now (does anyone have it?).
I think this is it:
https://bisq.wiki/Trading_rules#Pay_any_transaction_fees
Any fees incurred to make the payment via the agreed payment method (e.g., bank fees for bank transfer, money-order fees for money orders, etc) are the buyer’s responsibility to pay.
The seller should receive the exact amount of the trade. The only exception to this rule is if the receiving institution imposes a fee on incoming payments—these fees are borne by the seller.
Yes, that was it