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>> Transferring money internationally without additional costs. >nope It costs between $70 and $90 to send $1AUD from Australia to Iceland. Bitcoin transaction

>> Transferring money internationally without additional costs. >nope It costs between $70 and $90 to send $1AUD from Australia to Iceland. Bitcoin transaction fees have _never_ been that high, and they're currently somewhere around $1AUD. $50-$70 of that fee is taken out of the transaction instead of charged seperately, which means it may be impossible to pay a bill accurately via SWIFT. I tried to pay for a tent via SWIFT from Iceland to the USA recently. Because the US bank used a customer support system that required you to log in via a wells fargo account that I didn't have, I was unable to ask whether they charged fees to receive swift transactions. I added $15 extra to the SWIFT payment as a hedge against any extra fees from wells fargo. I guess that was enough, because the merchant sent me the tent. If you think that the SWIFT system is better than bitcoin you haven't used SWIFT much.

Lazlo_Nibble 8y ago
SWIFT charges pennies (well, eurocents) per message. The fees you’re referring to are imposed by the institutions on either end of the transaction.
- Sir_Substance 8y ago
  Actually, it's imposed by the institutions in the middle of the transaction as well. Australian banks don't handle Icelandic krona, and Icelandic banks don't handle Australian dollars. As a result, they pick a third bank that handles both to be the middle man. If there's no one bank that handle both then it becomes a 4-player game. Every bank involved charges fees. I don't know how many banks get involved in AU->IS, but since the fee per bank seems to be about $15-$20AU as a standard, I'm guessing at least 4.
brokensegue 8y ago
Sending money between countries is two things. Changing currencies and moving the cash. Bitcoin maybe saves you some money on the latter but you are going to need to do the former to do something useful no matter what and it doesn't save you anything there. Plus if you're an American suddenly this transaction has tax consequences. Plus I don't know where you got that quote but most transfers are much cheaper than that a/i. That pairing must just be incredibly non-competitive since it's very low volume. Why didn't you pay via a CC? Free foreign transaction fees is a common perk?
- Sir_Substance 8y ago
  >Why didn't you pay via a CC? Free foreign transaction fees is a common perk? Credit cards generally don't allow bank-to-bank transfers. If you're referring to the tent, the credit card processor choked on my Icelandic address and rejected it address as "not the address of the cardholder". It's a relatively common problem.

Lazlo_Nibble 8y ago

SWIFT charges pennies (well, eurocents) per message. The fees you’re referring to are imposed by the institutions on either end of the transaction.

Sir_Substance 8y ago
Actually, it's imposed by the institutions in the middle of the transaction as well. Australian banks don't handle Icelandic krona, and Icelandic banks don't handle Australian dollars. As a result, they pick a third bank that handles both to be the middle man. If there's no one bank that handle both then it becomes a 4-player game. Every bank involved charges fees. I don't know how many banks get involved in AU->IS, but since the fee per bank seems to be about $15-$20AU as a standard, I'm guessing at least 4.

brokensegue 8y ago

Sending money between countries is two things. Changing currencies and moving the cash. Bitcoin maybe saves you some money on the latter but you are going to need to do the former to do something useful no matter what and it doesn't save you anything there. Plus if you're an American suddenly this transaction has tax consequences. Plus I don't know where you got that quote but most transfers are much cheaper than that a/i. That pairing must just be incredibly non-competitive since it's very low volume. Why didn't you pay via a CC? Free foreign transaction fees is a common perk?

Sir_Substance 8y ago
>Why didn't you pay via a CC? Free foreign transaction fees is a common perk? Credit cards generally don't allow bank-to-bank transfers. If you're referring to the tent, the credit card processor choked on my Icelandic address and rejected it address as "not the address of the cardholder". It's a relatively common problem.