Originally Posted by Adraco

If in Sweden, call up the Wallenberg Bank, SEB, at 0771-365 365, wait for an operator.
If they even know what a wire is, they will then tell you that they will charge you 150 SEK (~$20) per transfer, just for RECEIVING a transfer.

Now, there is always a possibility for the sender to opt to pay the receivers costs also. Then those costs are covered in the sender fee and thus not assessed upon the receiving account.

S.E. Asia is not a country but a region. And as such, not the most advanced in the world. They do not have any leading banking system there, and not all countries in the region have banking systems working the same as their neighbour. It might be true for a single country or bank because they already have so much staff they can assign to this since manpower is cheap and they like to get USD currency coming in, it will not apply to an entire region.