My sister currently residing in Sweden, needs to send money to overseas to help with family financial situation. We initially thought of getting money sent to an account in Singapore and temporary sit there. And when the money is required, we can withdrawn/transfer it to a local bank here.
Reason to transfer and leave it in a Singapore account due to of the strong currency Singapore has over Aust dollars.
Does anyone Have any better way to send money from the other side of the world? Or doing it the old but expensive way- western Union? Or Are they still in business??? 😅
Transferring Money from Sweden
cathaygirl on 31/10/2015 - 02:26
Comments
Send as gift doesn't mean no fees it means the sender pays the fees.
No fees when you send for family & friends as a gift. But the exchange rate is terrible.
Do you have a Singapore bank account? If so then get your sister to do a good old bank transfer.
I guess this is the thing Buttcoins are good for.
Have you checked out OzForex? Most of our clients use them for money transfers as their exchange rates/charges are cheaper than the likes of WU and the banks: http://transfers.ozforex.com.au/nf/?pid=2759&cid=1774
I've use OzForex but I think transferwise.com (which I haven't used) has much better rates, especially at the larger transfer amounts typically needed for OzForex.
I haven't used it myself yet but transferwise.com may be what you're looking for.
They have bank accounts all across the world that allow them to transfer your equivalent local amount for free. They take a small margin after a conversion is performed using the real mid-market rate.
However, for some countries even Moneygram can end up cheaper or even cheapest, such as India. In Singapore and Australia the big companies charge much higher fees to receive money.
Using Bitcoins would probably be the cheapest method by far (free or pseudo-free) but I have no experience with it.
I like stashing my money in the Cayman Islands.
Bitcoin would be perfect for this, and I can recommend a company too - CoinJar
You can link your accounts at either end to the BitCoin account.
They also have an Australian EFTPOS card - CoinJar Swipe - although you'd probably be charged a withdrawal fee by the ATM provider. There are a couple of Bitcoin ATMs around (but only a couple - in Sydney and Melbourne only, I think)The only potential downside is that the exchange rate can be very volatile, although it seems to have been reasonably stable for a while.
Cool. What was involved in setting up your account? Was any verification needed? And is actually free with CoinJar. Do they charge the same user 1% to trade currencies but nothing between accounts?
I saw the startup at the AWS conference but I missed out on learning the details. I might need to use their API for something but it's a shame they charge 1% for commercial transactions (my purpose is to "professionalise" peer 2 peer payments).
I haven't actually set up Swipe because I don't need that facility. I can put you in touch with someone at CoinJar if you want to speak to them directly - PM me with your details and I'll pass them on.
If you transfer from Sweden to Singapore and then from Singapore to Australia you will pay fees or lose on the exchange rate 2 times.
I've sent money many times between Australia and the EU (bank to bank). Western Union used to be my agent of choice until their website 'improvements' 6 months or so ago, and since then it became impossible to work with; the website wouldn't allow the setting up of new receivers, sometimes the payments took ages to transfer to existing receivers, or the payments were reversed, with no explanation, after several days.
I've recent moved to using Transferwise, and after 10 transactions, both ways (between Australia and the EU) I can recommend them highly. The first first transfer I did took 12 hours (and that included ID verification), the fees are low and worked out more cheaply than using WU also.
I recently had to move money from Canada to Australia. www.currencyonline.com had the best rate for me. You can also enter in the desired exchange rate you want and they will watch the rates and notify you if it does get to that (but note that it may never get to the rate you want :))
1st transaction is free- worth considering if other websites will charge you.
They have excellent customer service- I gave them a call before I registered and then after I started the transfer process.
Thanks my fellow ozbargain for the comments. And heaps of thanks Blazecat and mikeoz! I think we are on a winner here!
The transferwise looks promising too! Seriously without you guys I don't know how I would be able to find this out on my own. You are my new found besties! Lol
Here's a devious way that would get you the best rates ever:
Find the Swedish equivalent of the Citibank account in Oz that charges 0% AND $0 on international withdrawals. Your sister signs up, and posts the debit card in registered mail to Oz.
When it arrives, she gives the PIN code over the phone :)
Make sure your sister tells the Swedish bank that she will be travelling to and from Australia regularly or it will ping the security alert system.
You'll then get the Visa or Mastercard international transfer rates which you really can't beat. :)
PayPal? send as gift and there will be no fees. Otherwise western union..