What’s the cheapest way to send and receive money from an overseas bank account? I have Up, but when I try to transfer large amount of funds the fees is expensive >$100.
What are the low cost options to send and receive money?
Banks advertised Fee free for receiving money (but intermediary banks fees occur) and sending, is that a good option?
Transfer and Receiving Money Overseas
iceteacake on 21/04/2023 - 13:01
Comments
Yep, use this and money is there instantly, fees are good, rates aren't bad. Its great.
A lot of us here use Wise to open bank accounts in other countries to accept affiliate payments from the likes of Amazon. Very reliable, as good as having an actual bank account with a traditional bank in other countries.
Can this be used for MTurk?
@deme: It should. Wise give you all the standard bank account details for a US bank account. Wise do share some info with Amazon I saw in a recent email, probably for tax compliance and fraud detection.
@deme: Yeah, multiple websites. Though I might have made more targeting Facebook and such instead tbh.
Yeppers 'Wise' (formally 'TransferWise') is the way to go.
Re the above claim:
'… and money is there instantly'
I'm not sure what that is alluding to (perhaps a credit card instant cash transfer, which incurs a rather large fee?), but if you transfer money from your bank account to someone else's bank account via 'Wise', the money is not 'there instantly'; but it will get there by the end of the next working day. These guys are really good actually, I have been using them for years and have never had a single problem with them.
The main reason I started using these guys instead of other services (such as 'WorldRemit', international bank transfers, etc.), was that TransferWise applies a realistic/genuine exchange rate; not a fictitious/extortionate/opportunistic highly inflated exchange rate.
From my own experience, transfers to UK and Indonesia were instant (assuming you use osko/fast pay type bank). I did about 7-8 transfers. Transfer to US with ACH were not instant.
I use Wise to send small amounts of money to India several times every month (also occasionally to Sri Lanka & Thailand). There can be a great variation in delivery time - a few minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours and so on up to 24 hours (or longer). This variance seems to depend on the receiving bank.
If I want to send a larger amount, e.g. several thousand dollars, I have found fees are less with Western Union. Sometimes, splitting the transfer into several smaller transfers reduces fees with WU.
Yep, agreed with Hybroid. Use Wise
Just used it last week to send to China and UK. Much much more economic than the banks / Western Union
What about to receive money from overseas ?
Wise does the same. You received whatever the sender sends less their fees and minor exchange rate differences.
do you need to open 2 wise accounts (1 in receiving country and 1 in sending country) ?
Wise doesn't send from China. Do you have an option from China to Australia?
western union charges $2, thats economic ?
its not the fees that they make money from you. its the exchange rate sitting underneath it.
OP didnt say there is a conversion. I have transferred AUD between two countries before for Zero fees. But that is an interbank agreement, not applicable to every situation.
But in general low fees could mean it is all in the spread if a conversion is required.
well generally banks are not charities so they gotta make money one way or another. Typically either through upfront fees, the spread or both.
I was simply responding to Sajidmib's comment about using WU who are notorious for charging wide spreads.
Wise on the other hand has been fairer on both upfront and spread and hence the recommendation.
@Bargainitis: Im not saying avoid WU because there is a spread. Im saying avoid WU altogether because they are sh!t.
I paid a friend who has travel agency in Indonesia with Wise and they receive it in less than 5 minutes.
To use money overseas best to just use your Australian debit card with no fees and at spot rate.
Does depend on which country, though. Wise isn't available everywhere. What country are you sending from, OP?
I just want a general idea, I was considering opening a bank account with those who does not charge fees.
I see. Hmm. Ok. Then the answer is DeeMoney. It’s great! Low fees. Fast. P.S. only works transferring money out of Thailand.
It seems that the commentors suggesting Wise are unaware that the international payments function within the Up app uses Wise technology and their banking API. The fees charged by Wise are exactly the same as those shown in the Up app. You can verify this using the Wise calculator: https://wise.com/au/pricing/send-money?sourceAmount=25000&so….
I use ofx and no fees, decent conversion rates
Unpopular opinion: transferring money to a crypto exchange like coinspot and purchasing USD stable coins with it and then sending those to the person (they need to have a crypto exchange account of some sort where you could send it) is a very economical way to do this. Coinspot even offers a digital bank card that you can add to your Apple Pay so you can spend the money directly from the account instead of cashing it out into a bank account. but I’m still not comfortable keeping crypto or cash on exchanges so if you do this only keep a small amount on.
This is fast and the exchange rate/slippage is very good.I reckon CurrencyFair https://currencyfair.com/ is hard to beat when the currencies for exchange are currencies they support like $AUD and €EUR. Their fee is just $A4 (€3) and is a one off when you send the converted money to a bank account. This funds the whole CurrencyFair operation of a licensed Irish bank. They don't take any other cut. The fee doesn't change even if big amounts are converted: we used CurrencyFair to change money to buy real estate overseas and it was still only this rate for each conversion and we got the best possible rate.
Why the best possible?
You can take the easy way taking the best available conversion rate on open offers in CurrencyFair or you can try for a slightly better and best possible rate setting an exchange (trade) using CurrencyFair's "marketplace". The marketplace is an opportunity to access the target currency at a rate you choose on an open market. Seller and buyer set the rates they will trade for and CurrencyFair makes the match once the rates and amounts align. If the currency moves your way when your trade/exchange is open on the marketplace then you will match unless you have been overly optimistic about the rate you might get.
I think Wise and OFX are both pretty good and beat the banks but I think only CurrencyFair is comparable to exchanging/trading on an online securities platform chasing down the best possible price: checkout https://www.thecurrencyshop.com.au/reviews/wise-vs-currencyf…
That chase down may make CurrencyFair superior, particularly where the amount is bigger, even in cases where I understand the Wise fee might be cheaper than the $4.
The article mentioned that CurrencyFair uses 0.45% markups on rates with flat $4 fees while Wise does not have markups but has fees.
To transfer $100k USD:
For CurrencyFair to convert 100,000 USD from AUD it will cost the sender AUD $149,410 + 0.45% of this (=$672) +$4=$150,086.
For Wise it will cost $150,116.40
CurrencyFair is cheaper $30.To transfer $10k USD:
Currency Fair: AUD $15,008, Wise: $15,012.20. CurrencyFair is cheaper $4.20.Thank you for taking an interest in my comment. My understanding (I might be wrong) is that the 0.45% markup (and can vary a little higher or lower) is a mark up fee if you use the "Exchange now" feature in CurrencyFair and so is, in effect, to the user who doesn't wish to take their chances finding an exchange rate with the marketplace. I don't think the article is clear about this. A Marketplace exchange is an alternative way of using CurrencyFair to the easier and immediate Exchange now function. In the marketplace I have never noticed any cut to the exchange rate for a markup which are all onscreen when you do a marketplace exchange.
Could someone please help me out with wise.
I just opened an account to receive funds from my friends from overseas.
On wise website it is stated that "You can get paid in the same currency as your balance, so to get GBP, share your GBP account details."
But I need AUD and they have EUR. I can't understand if I should open my currency account in EUR or AUD?
If I open in EUR, then how do I get these into my CBA account? If I open in AUD, then does it mean that they have to open an AUD account as well?
Very confused.If you need to receive money from overseas, get the sender to open the Wise account, then send you their euro to your CBA account directly (Euro to AUD). You will need to give them your CBA bank details. If they only pay Euro only - then you open multi currency account with Wise. It's free account, you go to Manage in Wise app, then Account details then click on EUR - the account details then active. You can give the details to your sender. Later you do your own transfer from this EUR account to your CBA with a fee.
Thanks mate. Asked them to open wise account and send straight to my CBA
www.wise.com