Spring has sprung, and so has the pound so decided to bring some money over (the € rental income covers living expenses, so don’t have to draw on Uk pension regularly). People have been so positive about these two methods that I thought I’d give it a go. However…
Looked at Revolut first and was rather put off by spelling mistakes (pedant, moi!) . Didn’t seem professional, but carried on. Although Revolut says you can use an iPad, having download app it just doesn’t open - don’t understand why. So tried on my phone but the signal is bad here so can never get the code in time, or load a selfie. For some reason it won’t do it when phone is on wifi, don’t understand that either.
So moved on to Transferwise. Which seemed straightforward, but at £3.69 fee for transfer of £1000 is not particularly competitive with the forex traders. Have I missed a way of avoiding the fee?
My experience so far, Jane, has been that the exchange rate was better than the Forex traders and they gave the charge separately so it was clear what was the rate and what was the charge without muddling the two. I know others prefer Revolut but I just didn’t like it. Other people will have broader experience than mine regarding Transferwise v Other Forex so may set me right on my assumptions there…
No. But it does vary depending on which method you use - debit card, bank details etc.
The fee is reasonable, the rate is reasonable, the transfer is instantaneous.
Transferwise compare themselves with banks rather than forex companies. They are right in that you get a better deal than the banks. They also tend to be competitive for small amounts.
OH uses money corp or currency fair and they always take longer and seem to cause him more hassle than I ever have with Transferwise. But these days, not a lot to choose between them and it’s just whichever you get used to.
Just checked just now and to transfer £1000 out of my TransferWise account was a £0.32 fee.
That was for a £ to £ transfer, £ to euro was £3.29 but if I was doing that I would transfer euro to euro from my euro balance and that would be £0.32 as well.
No he’s not John, he was transferring from his borderless £ a/c he holds with Transferwise. He must have paid something in addition to that to bring the sterling into his borderless a/c.
I’ve just checked mine. The other day, I transferred £500 from my UK £ a/c to my French euro a/c and they charged me £3.44 and the rate was 1.15
I transferred £ into my £ TransferWise account from the Halifax the other day and there was no charge.
I never do a £ to euro account as you get a conversion charge then.
I’ve just checked my own borderless a/cs and can confirm what Colin is saying.
£ out of UK a/c to £ in Transferwise charge is 90-odd cents
Euros out of French a/c to euros in Transferwise is 90-odd cents.
At no point is Colin doing a currency exchange. He’s only moving his money within their own currencies.
Most of us though are using Transferwise to CONVERT currencies and that’s where the £3-£4 charge comes in.
I have a Transferwise borderless a/c because I also have a gite and there are times when I want to refund the security deposit in euros to my European guests. It is quicker and easier for me to set up a euro transfer via Transferwise than CA. So I move euros out of my CA bank a/c here in France and that’s where the “only 90 cents” comes in. There is another minimal charge 60 cents to send the euros on to my Dutch guests. In this situation I have NOT converted money.
I did a comparison between TransferWise and my usual Currencyfair. The TransferWise xrate was slightly better than the Currencyfair rate but, with the TransferWise exchange fee plus a small fee for sending the euros to my French bank account, I would get more euros into my account by using Currencyfair. The only advantage I could see of using TransferWise is the whole transaction was very fast so I would only consider using TransferWise if I needed to do an urgent exchange.
As for Revolut - I only had to read some of the horror stories online about this company to convince me never to use Revolut.
So you never exchange money using transferwise then? Or is it that you put ££s into your transferwise £ account. And then shift it into your transferwise € account for free. And then shift it into your french bank € account?
I played around with amounts, and that seems to be true. The discount of the fee for larger amounts is minuscule, So would eg pay £36 on £10,000 as against a forex trader where the element of the rate used for fees would be about half that.
Overall rate better than banks, but not as good as Forex if exchanging several thousand.
We use Transferwise to invoice in multiple currencies - because you get IBAN etc details for each currency, clients see it as straightforward and safe because it appears they’re just making a transfer to a bank in their own country (or currency zone). Can Revolut do this?
