I come back to what I’ve said before about Revolut. Your money is perfectly safe with them, so you need not worry. However there are plenty of reasons to possibly not use them based around some of their very shady operational procedures and toxic company culture. But as a company they’re not going to half inch your money and disappear into the night with it, they provide an excellent service to customers, and hopefully they are making/ have made changes so that they don’t treat their staff in such an appalling manner that they have done so in the past, although of course they are not the only company in the world to do so, much of the tech world has had issues of this kind.
Currencyfair also charge €3 flat fee, so it’s much of a muchness for everyday transfers. I use both Currencyfair and Transferwise regularly so that I have options in case one or the other is out of service or otherwise having troubles. TW definitely has the edge on speed, CF has been a bit dilatory recently, with Euro transfers arriving the day after they should.
@Brian Clapham I’ve dealt with Currencyfair for many years so I’m well aware that their flat fee is 3€ per transaction. On the day I did my comparison TW’s fee was £7.50 for an exchange of £2000 plus a very small charge for the transfer into my French bank account. At that moment in time by using CF I would have received a few more euros than I would using TW. I have stated that TW do provide a very rapid service. As an aside, having just received an email from them TransferWise are now to be known as Wise!
Wise? Who dreamt up that bit of rebranding, I wonder.
Indeed, I was agreeing with your points, and pointing out that because CF use a flat fee, rather than a percentage, they would be a better choice for larger amounts.
1 Like
I guess nobody has looked into this with Revolut?
It’s probably relevant to the rebrand from Transferwise to ‘Wise’ - they obviously see themselves as much broader than forex.
Yes Revolut can do this, you have a separate account for each currency. (you get sort code, account numbers, IBAN etc).
With Revolut you hold a number of accounts - you can then (if you wish) move money between the accounts and in doing so you have exchanged currency at the full interbank rate.
This post Link detailed recently why I was very impressed with Revolut.
3 Likes
I always use CurrenciesDirect, and I find them very efficient and an acceptable exchange rate.
Jane Jones, I agree with you, if a company cannot spell correctly or starts to use bad language just to sell a product I give them a wide berth.
A bit of assistance please.
I bank with Nationwide in UK, and Credit Mutuel in France. Up until now, I have just transferred money from UK to France using Nationwide’s transfer money system.
The rate is usually a couple of pence under the efx rate, but I don’t pay a charge as such, whatever the amount, it seems to be calculated into the exchange rate, although they do tell me what the charge was!!. The largest amount I have transferred is £10,000 and the charge (!) was £38.
In the near future I am going to have to transfer a much larger amount, so the exchange rate difference may make it cheaper to use an FX company, but if they charge a commission per £k of around the same amount, which, do you think, is my best way?
TorFX (see link at top of page) have been consistently good over many years. Recently, we recommended them to friends to transfer a significant sum to France following an inheritance and they reported that the Company looked after them very well.
Our contact was Luke Zorab
Senior Account Manager Tel: +44 (0)1736 335285 SMS: +44 (0)7860 001101 Email: Luke.Zorab@torfx.com Web: www.torfx.com
Anton -
I use TransferWise regularly to transfer money from UK to France. I also have a Nationwide account. If I were to transfer today, using TransferWise I’d end up with 1155.57€. Using Nationwide would yield 1135.90€
Thank you Graham.
Brian, thanks for making the comparison. Would the same rates apply for £100,000?
Thank you Graham
Brian, thank you. Would the same rate apply if I wanted to transfer £100,000?
I haven’t transferred anything like that much for a few years so you’d need to ask your chosen supplier.
But for that sum, I’d want to compare a few suppliers and going with the best speed/cost/reliability option.
It’s worth asking TransferWise, TorFX (as recommended by @graham ) , XE.com and two or three others, including your bank.
When I sold two of my houses I used Foremost Currency Group, they were excellent and could not have been more helpful.
I have been using TW for 5 years now and never had a problem. The thing about foreign exchange is that there is a buy price and a sell price and the difference between the two is where most of the money is made traditionally. TW upended that and have been copied since, as they act as a broker between the two and so you get the mid-market price, with a clear fee for the service. I find it hard to believe a traditional currency broker (who typically gives you the sell rate) can improve on that but TBH the cost is so low that I would have to be transferring hundreds of thousands to even begin to worry about it.
The transfers are pretty much instantaneous and I also use it for making € transfers but certainly not for £ ones, where UK banks are still efficient and cost-effective. French banks are clunky and cumbersome and I can’t be bothered to go through CA’s procedure for electronic transfers - the small cost is nothing compared to the convenience
1 Like
at the end of the day… for the majority of people, it’s the actual amount of money you receive from the transaction as opposed to what fees are (or not) levied - surely. The “spread” (as the difference is called) is somewhat academic.
TW avoids the spread (though that’s fairly narrow on the currency markets themselves as opposed to the high street where it can be huge) by not actually buying or selling currency, all their £’s stay in the UK, $ in the US and € in the euro zone.
With larger amounts there are more behind the scenes checks carried out so process can be slowed somewhat. Using an FX broker rather than P2P services also allows you to buy in in and fix the rate, for example the 1.164 on offer today could be locked at that for a few months whereas currency fluctuations could cost you quite a bit more if the rate has slipped back a bit by the time you need the transfer. I know which I would choose and did when we purchased.