Alohajec,
Ok, following up from my last post, I've looked into your way of doing things a bit more and have some followup comments.
First of all, looking on the HSBC banking page, it looks to me like you can only "Bill Pay" to E*Trade (as opposed to "Transfer") because E*Trade didn't come up as a possible destination under "banks" that you can transfer to (either HKD or foreign currency). Thats OK, however, setting up E*Trade HKG as a Payee will work except that it only accets HKD transfers to them. That would be fine if my pay is in HKD. As I'm on a US base, my pay is in USD. So to make this work, I would have to convert my pay to HKD (take a exchange rate commission hit), then transfer to E*Trade HKG who will then, as you state, change the money back to USD (take another exchange rate commission hit) for it to get to your E*Trade USA account.
Am I missing something?? The main catch is that if you are US based, your pay is in USD. So, yes it can all be done for free, but what you save in wire transfers, you pay in multiple foreign currency change commissions.
What I do see though is that E*Trade does not charge for incoming wire transfers. So that will be a savings of at least $10/month (Bank of America incoming fee is $10, other banks I know of are $20).
I think my next step could be to open up an E*Trade USA basic checking account (no min balance fee) and wire my pay from HSBC ($130 HKD) and then write a check from E*Trade checking acct to deposit into my local bank account. If you have a Wamu acct, they don't charge any min balance fees either, so hence the only banking charge is the wire transfer fee to HSBC. Getting a cashiers check written in HKG saves a little, but how often are you there at exactly the right day for that to happen?? For me, I need $$ in my acct in the US a week before I get paid in HKG, so its desparation time and wiring is the only way to go.
Thats how I see it. If I'm missing something please let me know. It seems to me that the main catch is whether you are transferring HKD as a bill pay to E*Trade HKG vs having to change USD to HKD first and then doing it.
FYI