Would you like to learn more about TransferWise with me in this post because I finally found a money transfer solution, which is efficient, fast and has very low fees, and this can be very useful for you?
I have been looking for PayPal alternatives for receiving payments from the USA or Europe to where I am in Thailand, and also to send money from Thailand to my home account in Europe, or any person I would have to send money to, for a long time.
It always came back to, PayPal is the easiest way and you just have to swallow these high fees and unfavorable exchange rates... until now.
All the links to TransferWise in this post are affiliate links and I may get a commission when I refer several persons who use the service and save money on their international money transfers.
Cheap International Money Transfers with TransferWise!
What are the possibilities we have when we want to send or receive money from the USA or Europe to another continent?
The first thing that comes to mind is a wire transfer from bank to bank, and this is what we have been using for a very long time. Unfortunately, wire transfers take several days, they are very expensive because the sender pays a fee and the receiver pays a fee too, even if the sender has specified they will pay all fees to their bank. Sending small amounts is also not practical.
The second solution is Western Union, which is very fast and convenient, but here too, fees are very expensive, even more than banks.
The third solution is to use cryptocurrency, which is very convenient and fast to receive money, but due to high and very fast volatility, you may lose more than the bank fees for a wire transfer at the time you exchange your crypto and cash out. Unfortunately, even if crypto is good as a store of value and as an investment, it is also not practical, in my opinion, to receive payments for goods or services.
Now is the good stuff: TransferWise.
As they say, "Bye bye bank fees, hello world."
I was first shown TransferWise by a friend a year ago and I didn't take the time to look into it because I was too lazy for it and content with crypto and PayPal.
I recently gave up on transferring money via crypto because of what I explained above and I was left with PayPal and the high fees that are hard to swallow even when you send to a friend from a PayPal balance to a PayPal balance. This used to be free, not any more.
So, I researched TransferWise and did some calculations after I signed up, on what would be the fees for a transfers from the USA to Thailand.
I used the same amounts for a simulated payment from the USA using PayPal and Transfer Wise.
PayPal: Someone sends $280 and there is $12.62 in fees right away for the receiver. You have now $267.38 left in your PayPal account. Then, you withdraw this to your bank account, a Thai bank in this example, and you get 8,504.67 THB, 4 days later, with 31.81 THB per $1 USD as the exchange rate.
TransferWise: Someone sends $280 and there is $4.76 in fees right away for the receiver. You have now $275.24 left in your PayPal account. Then, you withdraw this to your bank account, a Thai bank in this example, and you get 8,972.82 THB, 2 days later, with 32.60 THB per $1 USD as the exchange rate.
When I did that calculation, I looked at the exchange rate on TransferWise and PayPal at the same time for it to be accurate.
As you can see you pay $7.86 less in fees with TransferWise and get more money in your bank, here 468.15 THB, which is $14.
Let's see how this works with a bigger amount.
PayPal: Someone sends $2,000 and there is $88.30 in fees right away for the receiver. You have now $1,911.70 left in your PayPal account. Then, you withdraw this to your bank account, a Thai bank in this example, and you get 60,806.25 THB, 4 days later, with 31.81 THB per $1 USD as the exchange rate.
TransferWise: Someone sends $2,000 and there is $21.81 in fees right away for the receiver. You have now $1,978.19 left in your PayPal account. Then, you withdraw this to your bank account, a Thai bank in this example, and you get 64,498.88 THB, 2 days later, with 32.60 THB per $1 USD as the exchange rate.
As you can see you pay $66.49 less in fees with TransferWise and get more money in your bank, here 3,692.63 THB, which is $113.
Which one do you prefer?
I urge you to have a look at TransferWise now if you want to pay less bank or PayPal fees, and get more money in your bank account: http://pantika.us/transferwise
Signing up for TransferWise
It's easy to sign up for TransferWise, but you will need to be verified. For this effect, they ask for a copy of your ID or passport and a bank statement as proof of address. This process takes 2 or 3 days and they even accepted my bank statement, which has the address in Thai.
When you are verified, then you are given you USA or EU bank details. There are much more than US dollars and euros to work with, but I will let you discover that by yourself.
How does this work?
Basically TransferWise gives you a borderless USA or EU account and someone with a USA bank account can just make a payment to you from their Internet banking account. As they transfer money from a US bank account to a US bank account (TransferWise), then there is no fee for you and for them. They can even set this recurring if payments have to be made every week or every month. It will take generally one full day to show up on TransferWise.
How do I withdraw my money?
In your TransferWise account you have to set up recipients, which can be your own accounts or someone else. It is what will be used to withdraw your money. When your money has been received in TransferWise, you just have to choose the correct recipient and the money will be sent. You can follow progress on the web interface or phone app.
I tested that on 3 different accounts, in Thailand and France and that worked perfectly as they said with no delay.
I am very excited by TransferWise and the only negative right now is that the Visa Debit card that you can link to your TransferWise account is not available in all countries yet. If it is available for your country, then withdrawing your money from ATMs will surely be awesome.
I will certainly make another post about TransferWise to show more about the interface, if you want to.
I hope this post is useful for you, and let's start saving money on international money transfers today.
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Michel Gerard
I like and use transferwise, but your comparison with crypto could be more detailed? Volatility? Surely depends on what crypto and how fast you're converting to fiat, how much and with what exchange etc.
The whole operation here with Transferwise still takes days. Sorry, so the ideal is to leave banking behind and go full crypto, as in the end of the day, organising an online payment with online banking is still a whole process that could be skipped.
I've used coinbase in the past when market was low, and sent it to other bank oversees after bitcoin rose. Still a shame coinbase fees are so high. Hurry up competition (and Binance euros to crypto etc.)
@ade-greenwise, thank you for your comment.
My point about crypto is, someone sends you a payment with Steem when it's at $1.25 from the USA. You wake up on another continent, 12 hours later the payment was made, and your Steem is at $0.80.
Same for any other crypto, unless you are online with the person, he sends you BTC and immediately you resell them, you get only the fees like what you said.
Unless there is a crypto that is stable enough to be at the same value 24 hours later, it's still a pain to be paid this way.
The whole operation with TransferWise takes 2 days and I have all my money with no worries.
Just HODL it then!. ..Besides, if i was organising a crypto payment with someone else, I'd keep them on Chat messenger or something and do it while we were chatting. Or just send it to them via public address! I've put my Nano address on my https://adespress.blog] for tips for example.
Well, staying awake late at night to receive a crypto payment is not ideal. I understand what you say because I want crypto to be what it's supposed to be.
Thank you @ade-greenwise for encouraging me to do some calculation with Coinbase.
Their fee is 1.49% for USD and EURO. So,if the value of your crypto is identical when you receive it, you pay $4,17 in fee for $280 with Coinbase and $4.76 with TransferWise. If the amount is $2,000, the fee is $29.80 for Coinbase and $21.81 for TransferWise.
Still more expensive with Coinbase and if the value of your crypto goes down in the mean time, you lose even more. And Coinbase is not available in all countries.
Now, it's why I love TransferWise so much after trying it, and in my opinion transacting in crypto is only good if you want to keep crypto and speculate.
Thank-you @gmichelbkk this is a great reply. And thanks for providing those details I wasn't sure precisely. It is something to consider.
All respect to TransferWise, it's a great site, and have also gone up against the banks. I hope folks use your referral link too, for filling in these gaps.
Yes, they've got some real competition coming (but slowly) from crypto. This article for instance. The market could look quite different this time next year.
BTW: It's cheaper to use Bitcoin for sending money overseas than Transferwise, if you're able to buy it without going through Coinbase. I'm sure there are ways to do this. (Or possibly by depositing the money into your EUR Coinbase account.. but which also takes days.) This still makes Bitcoin the cheapest solution.! You don't need to be online at the same time. All you need is the public address. Or you could email them from in Coinbase, and they can sign up at their end.
Thanks to you for your participation @ade-greenwise because it's how we want discussions on Steemit.
Agreed!. I just updated my last post. Crypto still beats TransferWise in my book, if you already own a large amount of bitcoin, by having made a bank desposit first.
But, I don't like Paypal !
Also , you can open a borderless account with TransferWise, which is another option for regular senders.
This is a very intriguing service with such low fees! I wonder how their backend works. Thank you very much for introducing this :D
This works very well and the backend is better than PayPal. You can see the status of your transfer until it arrives. Thank you for commenting @zhuwa.
@gmichelbkk more articles will be?
I will think about a more detailed article. Thank you for your feedback.
Haven't used them but have heard good things. The days of Pay pal are over, I am sick of them charging insane fees on basic transfers.
You are right @rhyscn, it is what motivated me to use TransferWise.
Good one for frequent traveller
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I am glad you like it @mihirbarot.
good service with less fee
I agree @avijeetthakur.
wonderful alternative thanks for sharing
Thank you @babyino for telling me this is useful for you.
Thanks you my friend yeah it's very useful
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