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Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

• eckesicle 6y ago
  My wife runs a small research startup in the UK and their clients are almost exclusively based in the developing world (ranging from the likes of Kenya to South Sudan and Myanmar). They are having difficulties receiving payments from many clients because: * They're a small company so many traditional banks aren't interested in banking them because they perceive risk to be too high (I guess from an AML standpoint?) * TW does not support receiving funds from these countries. There just doesn't seem to exist a reliable way to receive money from many of these countries. Does anyone know of a solution or bank that offers this kind of service?
• emilfihlman 6y ago
  At least in Europe, SEPA payments are visible abroad the next day (at least according to my experience from transferring to Germany and London from Finland), so that's not too slow.
  • fauigerzigerk 6y ago
    Where "next day" can mean 4 days later if you initiate the transfer on a Friday afternoon.
• adanto6840 6y ago
  Over the last year or so it seems like TransferWise has rapidly come onto the scene & taken over much of the landscape for our international contractor payments. The fees tend to be much lower than existing alternatives; importantly, the administrative friction is incredibly low, too. We're able to handle international payments essentially the exact same way we do with most other vendor & contractor payments, via ACH transfers. It's saved us a ton of time/hassle, even ignoring the fee savings (which have been somewhat substantial for most countries & currencies).
  • dzhiurgis 6y ago
    > Over the last year or so it seems like TransferWise has rapidly come onto the scene They've also increased some of the fees over the last year
    • jeromegv 6y ago
      Depends on the currency. Mine has gone down.
• d--b 6y ago
  I've been using TransferWise since it started. It's just the best. Cheapest fee by far, excellent support. No affiliation here: I'm just a happy customer.
  • lioeters 6y ago
    I second this. Been using TransferWise for a while (few years?), a very satisfied customer. Their onboarding and ease-of-use are phenomenal - even for senior people who are not technically literate. I recommend it to friends, family, clients.
• shoo 6y ago
  If you have an online brokerage account, it can be possible to use that to exchange currency directly on the market, with the market exchange rate and very low fees. Obviously that isn't a one-step solution for clients paying you, but it can work very well if you have money in bank accounts in different countries, and they both integrate with your brokerage account in a low-fee way.
  • eternauta3k 6y ago
    But how do you transfer between countries? The fees for wiring money or securities with brokers are higher than normal Bank transfers, at least where I live
• nurettin 6y ago
  > As a remote freelancer you likely receive payments from other countries and convert these different currencies into your own currency I do, but only when I really need to, because my country's money isn't worth the nickel it is imprinted on and devaluates all the time, so I'd rather keep my savings at $$.
• emdowling 6y ago
  I’m a former TransferWise employee and I cannot speak more highly of them. Yes, they aim to make money like every business, but I’ve never seen a company so focused on transparency to customers. The CEO intensely interrogates roadmaps from the customer perspective, and fairness to customers is non-negotiable. Their economy of scale enables them to offer increasingly lower fees, but I can speak first hand to the pain felt by everyone at the company when costs have to increase. Anyway, I trust them far more than any bank and cannot recommend them more highly both as a customer and workplace.
  • koheripbal 6y ago
    I don't know... the only time I tried to use Transferwise was to make a transfer to Haiti. Their website claims they support it, they allowed for the transfer to be initiated - but in the end it failed for some unknown opaque reason. I'm sure it works for most large countries, but the reality is that they sell the idea that they can transfer anywhere, list almost every country to give the illusion of ubiquity, but haven't actually tested transfers to all those countries.
    • jeromegv 6y ago
      If they say they support it, it’s because they do support it. Problems are common in international bank transfer, that’s why their support team could have helped you. Your anecdata doesn’t prove that they don’t support this country, if it’s on their website it’s because they do.
      • koheripbal 6y ago
        The reply from support was that they don't support Haiti - despite the marketing on their website that they do. Support was responsive.
    • jkaplowitz 6y ago
      Sometimes they support countries in some ways but not others. For example, as of when I last checked, they support sending Canadian dollars south to Mexico to be converted into Mexican pesos for delivery there, but not the reverse transaction.
• 0xfaded 6y ago
  I use TransferWise for me as a private person. However, For my company I recently needed to pay a USD invoice ~$3.000 to a vendor who couldn't accept a credit card. I looked into setting up TransferWise for my company, but half way through the validation process I decided to check what my bank charged. ~$30 with the actual exchange rate, compared to about ~$14 for Transferwise. I applaud TransferWise for taking it to the banks, but saving ~$16 on the occasional international transaction for me isn't worth explaining to my accountant a random debit from my account.
  • sho 6y ago
    > ~$30 with the actual exchange rate, compared to about ~$14 for Transferwise I have never seen this (TW user here too!) and I transfer money pretty often. Are you sure the exchange rate was the same? Because that's how they get you - a fairly minimal charge (your $30, or often "free") but then pad out the exchange rate in their favour, sometimes up to 5%(!) Or maybe you just have a really excellent bank. None of mine even come close. Hell, I've used TW to move between currencies in the same bank account because of the clip the fuckers wanted for the privilege of moving some numbers from column A to column B.
    • eternauta3k 6y ago
      > I've used TW to move between currencies in the same bank account How do you do this? Last I tried, TW didn't let me choose currencies (it used the default currency for the source/destination country)
      • sho 6y ago
        It was SGD to USD and you're able to use SWIFT to any country for USD (so I just pointed it at the same Singapore bank). It was slightly more expensive but still less than DBS was going to charge. It would definitely be nice if they opened that up a bit, plenty of countries these days can do multi-currencies.
    • 0xfaded 6y ago
      Yep, the rate I got was equal to what ddg showed me, unless they're in on the scheme as well.
• msadowski 6y ago
  I was looking into this when I started freelancing on UpWork. I found that the best option for me was to have an US ACH account through TransferWise, otherwise I was looking at either high transfer fees, currency conversion fees or all of the above + a rate that is far off from the market rate. With the current setup the only cost I have are the TransferWise fees for USD to EUR conversion when I send the money to my local bank.
  • unnouinceput 6y ago
    You "lose" thousands of dollars per year on Upwork no matter what you do. But this is a non-issue in the end, am I right? That's why I used quotation, because I prefer having this loss on a high volume of work rather than work for pennies in my country and saving transaction fees. In the end I don't care about these fees, it's the world we're living in and I prefer to have fun with my projects instead.
    • msadowski 6y ago
      Instead of "loss" I consider it a service price for discoverability and the payment guarantees for hourly projects. I also don't mind paying since so far it's been the best method to get projects for me so far.
      • unnouinceput 6y ago
        That's exactly what I said in my words, no?
      • Ayesh 6y ago
        Yes, the 20% definitely raises eyebrows. Uber charges 20%< Booking.com 15%, and Airbnb 5+10%, just to put a comparison. I no longer use Upwork, and the "loss" is only one of the reasons. But it's probably the best way to find projects easily though.
        • msadowski 6y ago
          I think this depends a lot on what kind of projects you take. If you do lots of small projects for many customers and rarely charge them more than $500 then the charges are indeed terrible. If however you do more long term projects (I have one active project that has been open for 2 years) then you quickly get to the 10% charge. I wish they reduced the amount of money you need to earn to enter 5% charge range (it's currently $10k AFAIK) and I imagine it's quite rare for freelancers to get there. What I think is quite bad on UpWork when it comes to charges is the 'connects' that you have to pay for since last year I think. Last I checked it was up to $1 USD per project proposal, which might make it very difficult for some people to get their foot in.
• TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  I used TW for a real estate purchase. It was fine, although I sent the money in stages, because money-in-transit is not covered by any deposit protection scheme. My understanding is this applies to all of the services operating in this space, not just TW. But the suggestion that banks are more expensive is not necessarily correct. My new bank charges nothing at all for IBAN transfers to my old bank in another country. Money usually arrives next day, or sometimes same day if sent early enough. The exchange rate seems to be the interbank rate and not a consumer rate, so it's all very simple and cheap.
• danohuiginn 6y ago
  There are also accounting advantages to having fees explicitly charged, rather than baked into exchange rates. An explicit fee is something I can easily state as an expense for tax purposes.
• dmos62 6y ago
  Depending on your situation (regulation and logistics), cryptocurrencies can be a good way to move money internationaly. I've used Bisq for that with success, though it's more involved than a simple KYC crypto exchange or the (usually costlier, right?) traditional banking methods.
• Nux 6y ago
  +1 Transferwise, great service! Happy customer.
  • nikatyet 6y ago
    +1 to Transferwise. I'm a happy customer too!)
• jonathanstrange 6y ago
  Reminds me of the Kagi cheques I used to get via snail mail. Once I had a cheque of around 160 USD and got back less than half of it from my former bank, the Berliner Sparkasse. I went to the local branch and they kindly explained to me that every institution "in between" the "billing chain" for foreign cheques can siphon off an almost arbitrary transaction fee. I still think that was fraud. Anyway, I opened an account at a US bank with branches in Germany and it cost me only the usual fee (which was still high, though). Nowadays I'm using Fastspring.
• tchaffee 6y ago
  Based on my own experience doing international transfer over many years, the article is pretty accurate. However there is another option, but it does have more risk. Bitcoin. I'm not much of a fan of cryptocurrency in the first place. But international money transfers with low fees is the first real use that actually justifies Bitcoin for me. My credit union charges $20 for a wire transfer. And the transaction fees of my Bitcoin exchange in my target country are low. The risk is the one to two hour window that it takes to transfer the Bitcoin. If prices suddenly drop in that time, I could be in trouble.
  • needle0 6y ago
    Are stablecoins viable in the real world for this kind of use case? Anyone have any firsthand experience?
    • tchaffee 6y ago
      Unfortunately the viability of this is going to depend a lot on what country you are trying to transfer to. In my destination country of choice (population > 200m) there are two small exchanges and four cryptocurrencies you can trade.
    • nanexcool 6y ago
      I live in Argentina and have been getting paid in Dai (stablecoin on Ethereum) for over 2 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHji4x5C1q0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHji4x5C1q0
      • vivab0rg 6y ago
        I'm also in Argentina. Do you use a service or provider for this? How do you turn your DAI into cash? Thanks for your insight!
• briodf 6y ago
  Great post Jurn, thanks for participating in the effort against hidden exchange rate markups. If you want to check for yourself how much you could save with TransferWise (or one of their competitors) vs banks or PayPal, we've built a comparison site for international money transfer: www.monito.com which compares live exchange rates and fees for any amount you'd like to transfer between two countries/currencies (e.g. US-Euro https://www.monito.com/send-money/united-states/netherlands/usd/eur https://www.monito.com/send-money/united-states/netherlands/...) Our initial goal was to help migrants save money when they support family back home, but the tool can be used by businesses/freelancers/travellers as well. Let me know if I can be of any help in the comments, we've become payment geeks over the years!
  • wtmt 6y ago
    I wanted to provide you feedback as well as alert others reading these comments. Your site doesn’t list anything other than Transferwise for transfers from India to USA, even though options like InstaRem and others exist. Based on this, I’m not sure how comprehensive your service is to compare providers for cross border transfers. I see you have InstaRem and others for some other currency combinations (including the inverse, sending money from USA to India).
    • briodf 6y ago
      Thanks for your feedback. Monito.com strives to list as many options as possible and be the most exhaustive source of information about international money transfer fees worldwide. However, we're not always able to access all data as no worldwide regulations require banks or money transfer services to be transparent about their fees and exchange rates (yet). That being said, in the case of money transfers from India to the USA: InstaReM temporarily suspended money transfers from India last month. As soon as this is re-activated, they will once again appear in our comparison table on all supported corridors from India.
      • wtmt 6y ago
        Thanks for the prompt response with details. If I may bother you one more time, do you have XE in your list of providers? It provides money transfers for many currency pairs (probably not as broad as Transferwise or InstaRem).
• EastSmith 6y ago
  I am receiving SWIFT payments each months in EU as a commercial entity. I am invoicing in USD, providing a bank account number, where the money I receive are automatically converted to the local currency (not EUR). Just checked the exchange rate on TransferWise and it seems it is way better than any bank exchange rate in my country (not EUR). So, what I am concerned about right now is taxes. It seems I can create an USD bank account in US on the name of my company for free. Then I can invoice my customers in USD (as I currently do) and tell them to pay the invoice to the US bank account in TransferWise. Then I transfer the USD to my local bank account (in local currency, using TransferWise exchange rate). So far so good. But what about my USD bank account in US - wouldn't I need to pay taxes for my USD income in a US bank account?
  • noelwelsh 6y ago
    If you don't pay tax now it is my understanding you shouldn't pay tax after changing to Transferwise. The general rule is that tax is paid in the country where the work is carried out. If you have doubts you should ask an accountant, rather than randoms on HN.
    • pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      I thought USA charged income taxes on dollar earnings paid in USA too. That aside, suppose I work nomadically, ssh in to a computer in USA, perform actions there ... where is the work carried out? It's it necessarily the location of the employee? So USA based remote workers can geographically move to a low tax regime and save money? How about if I'm in USA working for an offshore company using a desktop and systems located in that companies premises but again I dial in to a USA based client; seems my work is offshore, at the companies premises?
      • ska 6y ago
        The answer to this is "it depends". This is really dependent on tax treaties and the nature of the work, it's as simple as where the computer is. The laws are basically set up to avoid setting up easy tax avoidance so it's not as simple as moving people around.
• mkbkn 6y ago
  I've very high regards for TransferWise. Fastest and cheapest. Meanwhile, Paypal is a frauster and should be mass-boycotted. So do Upwork.
  • fnordsensei 6y ago
    Is it though? I recently compared it to Revolut (during a series of large-ish transfers), and TW turned out to be quite a bit more expensive, and no faster.
    • mkbkn 6y ago
      Revolut is not available to non-European and non-US citizens. I haven't tried it.
• vijaybritto 6y ago
  His suggestions: 1. use transferwise.com 2. Open foreign currency account in your bank
• carlob 6y ago
  I have an account with an Italian bank that offers multicurrency accounts (EUR, USD, CHF, GBP + others not activated by default). If I change 1000 EUR to USD now I get 1089.90 USD, if I try to change 1089.90 USD to EUR I get 993.80 EUR, so it seems the spread is less than 10 base points, which seems to be pretty much in line with Transferwise. Also, given that I actually have a part of my account in USD that means I can wait and change money when I need it rather than when I invoice.
• nedsma 6y ago
  Using the opportunity to pressure TW to expand into more markets. Why only focus on the EEA countries? Come on, expand onto whole Europe/world, if Payoneer/Skrill can do it, you can too. Edit: make debit cards available anywhere.
  • Ayesh 6y ago
    I suppose being a European company, there are more regulations at play. Payoneer is US based. Skrill is UK based, and I don't think they have prepaid debit cards? Even if they do, nobody should use them. They were moneybookers once, and from first hand experience, they are highly unpredictable when it comes to fees and conversion rates. Revolut is also European and doesn't offer debit cards throughout the world.
  • nilanp 6y ago
    Coverage is pretty comprehensive https://transferwise.com/ https://transferwise.com/ available in 59 countries (see half way down the home page) The borderless bank account seems available in a ton of countires too - https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/ https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/
• ashleysmithgpu 6y ago
  Just to add a dissenting voice to the conversation, I recently attempted to transfer some money with transferwise and they refused just after I had uploaded all of my ID etc. In the end I went with worldremit and they were much easier to deal with. Slightly more expensive but I'd choose that over the hassle of tw.
  • newsbinator 6y ago
    To add another voice, I spent several weeks in Bulgaria unable to use my Transferwise "borderless" card in any shops (including all the major ones, like Lidl and DM). The first few times Transferwise insisted it's a broken card reader, then a few calls and emails later it became the merchant's terminal that's at fault. On some of the calls, Transferwise simply hung up on me when I didn't take "you should try it again" for an answer. Finally after escalation it became the terminal's providing bank, which didn't recognize my Transferwise card number (issued in New Zealand). Meanwhile other people used their Transferwise cards at the same locations mine failed. So I requested a European version of my Transferwise card but TW insisted that would break their contract with Mastercard or something. 3 or 4 weeks later, after I had already left Bulgaria, they emailed to update that my card would now be working. Needless to say, I always travel with more than 1 provider's card with me, and this runaround from Transferwise is why.
    • shavingspiders 6y ago
      Interesting, I had a similar issue with my NZ-issued TransferWise card, however it resolved itself in a few days. This was in Dubai airport & then across a few merchants in the UK, though.
  • wtmt 6y ago
    I’m suspecting that the answer to my question would be no, but will still ask anyway. Did Transferwise give you any usable reason for their refusal or was it a blanket “sorry, we can’t do business with you” that many companies use for all kinds of reasons while hiding behind the garb of security and fraud?
• stared 6y ago
  As a freelancer often working remotely: I have a great experience with Revolut Business. From time to time I used TransferWise, and I am happy with the service. However, it is a transfer, not an account. For some contracts (universities in various places) a bank account is a must, so to fulfill local procedures. Revolut Business works like a bank account (including SWIFT transfer) with seamless exchanges between accounts. I created an account specifically to be paid in SGD (Singaporean dollar). If I used my "normal" bank account, the charges would be enormous (effective ~10%).
  • arulpugazh 6y ago
    Transferwise now also provides a bank account with a proper IBAN and a Master card. I have been receiving my salary for the past six months in this account without issues. From last month, they also added Direct Debits feature. The only annoyance is that I can't use the Master card in many shops in Belgium because they only work with Bancontact cards.
    • stared 6y ago
      Thank you for the update. Last year it was not possible (and took me some time to discover that).
  • bromuro 6y ago
    I connected TransferWise with my Xolo and N26 account.
• ucha 6y ago
  Transferwise is cheap but Revolut is free. I pay the mid-market rate and no markup unless I want to convert currency on weekends. There is a 6000€ conversion limit that can be lifted for 8€/month.
• thomseddon 6y ago
  Recent TransferWise horror story of a public company, processing millions, who had their account suddenly shutdown: https://blog.simwood.com/2020/03/emergency-bank-details-change/ https://blog.simwood.com/2020/03/emergency-bank-details-chan...
  • solarengineer 6y ago
    The TransferWise Acceptable Use Policy dated 24 July 2019 doesn’t allow VOIP business to use TW. The blog post from SimWood is from 19th March 2020. I’ll leave it to TW to explain when they changed their AUP, how come SimWood s was able to use them later, and also for SimWood to explain how come they didn’t track the AUP changes at TW, and instead felt the account closure to be sudden.
• igauravsehrawat 6y ago
  Transferwise is great. One feature, I liked was Exchange rates alerts.
• sambarina 6y ago
  I am surprised that there is no mention of Bitcoin. My current project is also in another country (US) and I live in Europe. I am getting paid in BTC, and I pay even less then via Transferwise. It is cheaper because the company already owns Bitcoin, so it doesn't need to buy them. What I do is: - Getting BTC transferred to a wallet at an exchange I trust - Sell the BTC ones I receive them and put the money on my bank account I switch between using Transferwise and BTC. The downsides are obviously that the price can fluctuate quite heavily. But my experience is that I saved a few hundred Euros each year (around 450 Euros) from using BTC instead of Transferwise. That's not a lot in the grand scheme of things. What I like about a BTC transaction is that I can monitor it, it is even more transparent then Transferwise and I truly "own" the BTC ones sent. It is a bit sad that I can't use it as much as I would like so I sell around 90% immediately to pay rent, buy stocks etc, and 10% stay there for future gains.
  • pal_9000 6y ago
    I believe fiat withdrawal fees / trading are a lot higher than transferwise fee, at least in my case. Which exchange do you use if I may ask?
    • sambarina 6y ago
      I personally use Kraken. Deposit money is sometimes within the same day, and selling was never a problem: https://www.kraken.com/features/fee-schedule https://www.kraken.com/features/fee-schedule I am not tight to them, but for me it's the less concerning option.
  • Ayesh 6y ago
    I'm genuinely looking forward to a day that we can do this. Digitally transfer money between each other. Right now, you are probably losing more money that Ttansferwise because it costs a considerable amount of money to convert them to Fiat currency.
    • tradertef 6y ago
      Agree. Also, you loose money when you buy it. P2P transfer is extremely cheap, but on-ramp and off-ramp are horrible. That's why there are so many exchanges making money in Bitcoin business.
• samdung 6y ago
  An online payment of USD 150 generates USD 14 for the middlemen. Source: https://docs.sendwithses.com/random-stuff/enemy-at-the-billing-gates https://docs.sendwithses.com/random-stuff/enemy-at-the-billi...
• wprapido 6y ago
  A happy TW customer here, too. Had my card skimmed in Thailand. All money recovered without much hassle.
• throw0101a 6y ago
  For CAD-USD exchanges, Norbert's gambit is a popular procedure: > Here’s how you can use this ETF to exchange $10,000 Canadian: > 1. Get a quote for DLR and calculate how many shares you can buy for $10,000 Canadian. > 2. Place an order for that number of shares. The trade will settle in Canadian dollars. > 3. Call your discount brokerage’s customer service desk and ask them to take your DLR shares and “journal them over” to the U.S. dollar side of your account, where they should show up as DLR.U. > 4. Place an order to sell all of your DLR.U shares. The trade will settle in U.S. dollars. * https://www.moneysense.ca/magazine-archive/norberts-gambit-a-better-way-to-buy-u-s-dollars/ https://www.moneysense.ca/magazine-archive/norberts-gambit-a... * https://www.finiki.org/wiki/Norbert%27s_gambit https://www.finiki.org/wiki/Norbert%27s_gambit * https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/12/03/norberts-gambit-the-complete-guide/ https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2013/12/03/norberts-gambit-t... Technically this would work with any interlisted stock, though the DLR ETF is very popular for this because of its liquidity. One could probably find stocks for GBP and EUR as well: * https://www.tmxmoney.com/en/research/interlisted.html https://www.tmxmoney.com/en/research/interlisted.html The overhead of the exchange is the cost of buying/selling the stock, which is fixed price, so it it's not like a percentage cut.
  • jannes 6y ago
    Depending on where you live this could make your tax declaration more complicated, which could require the services of a tax consultant if you don't know how to do it yourself... Just something to keep in mind if you want to save money.
  • cik 6y ago
    This is exactly how I transfer money between the US and Canada. Outside of Corona, it's easy to minimize this impact by choosing either bank stocks or indexes, and always after 1045 EST when the market jitter is done ~90% of the time.
  • Scoundreller 6y ago
    > Technically this would work with any interlisted stock, though the DLR ETF is very popular for this because of its liquidity. An interlisted bank/telecom stock has far more liquidity than DLR does. This is a bit of a problem because you’ll pay at least half a cent or a cent in spread for your purchase and sale to the market makers. This adds up a lot more quickly on a $10 DLR than a $100 bank stock that’s liquid enough to have the same spread. A 1cent spread costs you 0.1% for the buy and then again for the sale on DLR. On a $100 stock, it’s 0.01%. DLR’s advantage is that it isn’t volatile because it only holds dollars and nothing else. If you use a bank stock, the advantage is that you’re “in the market” during the duration of your trade. On average, that’s a plus, but you could lose/gain a few percent in the time it takes to journal. The other disadvantage of DLR is that it does have a management fee. You shouldn’t hold it for long periods, but it’s another mark against DLR.
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• toptal 6y ago
  We at Toptal initially created TopTracker payments (we don't monetize on this product at all) to be the lowest form of payments for freelancers globally by partnering with Payoneer. Essentially, it's a fixed 2% transfer cost including FX, however TransferWise is often able to beat that. We, and I'm sure other companies, would love to partner with TransferWise, however they've yet to create API's that allows for a product to work with their system effectively. Once they do so, this will be a game changer for doing payroll globally.
  • jddj 6y ago
    Really? A lot (most?) of the fintechs in the UK/EU seem to use TransferWise under the covers for their foreign currency exchange, and while I haven't used the api itself yet I have skimmed the docs for it and they seem detailed enough. They (intentionally, afaict) don't provide a checkout flow, but there's still a lot there.
    • toptal 6y ago
      For doing payroll like transfers, especially with strong compliance, there's a lot of under the hood functionality required. Payoneer has spent over a decade creating this, while TransferWise still has a long ways to go.
  • alibaba_x 6y ago
    Doesn't TopTracker payments require both freelancer and client to create a Payoneer account? Requiring clients to sign up for Payoneer is a huge barrier to adoption for your service.
  • nilanp 6y ago
    Hi - we certainly do have an API at transferwise. I'm in the product team. Drop me a line at n at transferwise dot com. Nilan
  • sebastianconcpt 6y ago
    My traditional bank is less expensive than that
• dnh44 6y ago
  I've been using CurrencyFair for over a decade and they've always been great.
• ss3000 6y ago
  For travel, is there any benefit to using TransferWise's debit card over a traditional debit/credit card that advertises 0 foreign transaction fees? I remember somewhere about how the conversion rates are dictated by Visa/Mastercard on most credit/debit cards. Wondering how those rates compare to TransferWise's, and if their extra fee on top is justified. Some examples: https://www.schwab.com/checking https://www.schwab.com/checking https://creditcards.chase.com/rewards-credit-cards/sapphire/preferred https://creditcards.chase.com/rewards-credit-cards/sapphire/...
  • hocuspocus 6y ago
    Mastercard's FX rates are pretty competitive. Visa used to be expensive, but it seems they've caught up lately. So in practice, the main difference is that Transferwise uses an instant "mid-market" rate at the time of the transaction, and then applies its fees (which are very reasonable on common pairs). Mastercard and Visa use a daily average rate that is not computed until the day after. In the end, Transferwise can sometimes be a little better, sometimes a little worse. They should all be within 0.1%. So, to answer your question, no it's not really worth it for you. Only Revolut regularly beats everyone else since they don't charge any fee on top of their spot rate on most common pairs, except for the weekends.
  • fpoling 6y ago
    In Norway when a bank advertises 0 transaction fees they skip roughly 1.8% that Visa charges for doing currency exchanges.
    • hocuspocus 6y ago
      Visa doesn't charge this fee, it's your bank.
  • dannyw 6y ago
    Visa and MC charges 0.6% on forex.
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• lordnacho 6y ago
  I used to trade FX in my hedge fund, where of course we got interbank rates. The spread would have 5 decimal places for something like EURUSD, so 1.12345 bid, 1.12346 offered, based on mixed prices from different brokers. I was astonished when I tried to change some money in the retail market and instead of the 5th decimal digit being different, it would be the 2nd. Luckily these days there's several services that will give you something near the same spread, close enough to not care to search for improvements. Revolut does something like that, as does TW. I'm sure some of the other challenger banks are doing this as well. Another big bonus is they don't force you to change your money. This is a big deal if you have an old bank like Barclays that will see your incoming USD and change it to GBP, losing you several percent in the process. If you have Revolut or TW you can actually just keep your USD, chances are there's something you pay for in dollars.
• ghoul2 6y ago
  Tangentially related: is there any payment gateway that allows one to accept international payments (for SAAS) paid out to transferwise accounts? I know paypal doesn't connect with TW. Is there any other gateway that does? Especially for Freelancers (not operating as a business).
• fpoling 6y ago
  TransferWise rocks. I save about 16 Euro on a transfer of 500 euros to Spanish bank from Norwegian krones. And it works within seconds. The saving comes mostly from fees that the Spanish bank charges to receive international payments.
• jaeming 6y ago
  I just used TransferWise for the first time last night. I was legitimately impressed with their well-designed UI/UX. My bank doesn't even have an online interface for international wire transfers, plus, their UI looks like something developed in coldfusion by an ex-myspace engineer.
  • why-el 6y ago
    TransferWise customer for over 5 years now, they are the best in the market.
• polm23 6y ago
  I live in Japan and first heard of TransferWise from a friend moving to the States, but since I became a contractor last year most of my international clients use it, and it's always just worked.
• dzhiurgis 6y ago
  Interactive Brokers have quite low fx fees and ability to fund/withdraw in many currencies. Problem is it takes a while a to open an account and to clear funds.
• modamilk 6y ago
  TransferWise highly recommended. If you spend/receive money in multiple currencies, you can also track your money with Lunch Money app. Jen, founder was on the indie hackers podcast. I'm not affiliated with either service and i haven't used lunch money. I have had great experience using TransferWise for international payments
• sebastianconcpt 6y ago
  From Brazil, I've used TransferWise until it became way more expensive than my regular bank to receive wire transfers.
• ransom1538 6y ago
  FYI American worker: When an international employee makes $40 per hour and they perform two weeks of work -- their US employer sends them 80 * 40 = $3200. No Federal Income Tax Withholding, no Social Security and Medicare deductions, no Federal Unemployment (FUTA) Tax, no State withholdings, nothing. Employers love it. No drama. Just straight gross cash.
  • puszczyk 6y ago
    Well, they likely need to pay income tax and social insurance in their own country. The burden has just been shifted to them. To be fair, I’m not 100% sure how this works in the US, in PL where I’m from and probably in all of the EU countries if you are on a job contract then the employer pays the taxes and social insurance for you. If you are self-employed / freelance you have a business registered in your name and it’s your responsibility. Either way, I don’t see how the taxman’s cut disappears. Also lot of countries have higher taxes + social insurance than the US. If you really want to make a case, you can say that the contractors from a low-cost-of-living countries may undercut American workers (but then, if they work remotely I think they mostly undercut the office jobs, not “workers”) because they ask less money for the same.
    • adanto6840 6y ago
      Works pretty much the same in the US, too. When we pay US contract labor, we generally send the "gross cash amount". The US contractor actually has to fill out a form upon commencement that says how their taxes & social insurance will be paid; at the end of the year they get a form from the businesses they did work for which shows total paid, and they use that to do their taxes. Same thing for international contractors -- they just have to deal with their local jurisdiction's taxes, instead of the US IRS.
    • novok 6y ago
      He is talking about avoiding paperwork & payroll management stress, not avoiding taxes per say.
  • ska 6y ago
    This is just moving things around. The international employee deals with equivalent of withholding etc. It's exactly like a self-employed consultant/contractor locally, they should be factoring this into their hourly rate (including things like paying their accountants to sort out taxes, etc.). If wage disparity is big enough, it can still be a "win". Also it doesn't always work this way, often US companies have subsidiaries to handle payroll etc. in other countries.
• brudgers 6y ago
  There is a simpler solution. Charge more money for your freelance work. Higher fees compound. Cost savings diminish. Even better higher fees select for better clients. Working for clients where profits depend on your cost savings is a race to the bottom. And when clients pay more you can afford to outsource the work of setting up cost savings processes instead of doing the work yourself. There's nothing wrong with saving money, but that's not the purpose of a business.
  • fierarul 6y ago
    Yes, easy, just charge more! I wonder why doesn't everybody just do it? Because it's non-trivial, it involves risk and you might end up making less money! While cost saving has almost no risk. Here's a relevant piece of the article: > But what if it's a 6-month project and instead of billing them 1000 per month, you are billing them 10.000 per month? > Now you could have saved €150 per month for 6 months, meaning you lost €900 just on currency conversion on this project. Ouch! > It could very well be that you can buy a brand new MacBook Pro every few years with just the savings on your international payments. A business is also not good if you just let money slip through your fingers.
    • brudgers 6y ago
      Charging more is harder than shopping for ways to save money and less pleasurable than dreaming of new MacBooks. Yes there is risk. Mostly of rejection. And rejection is painful and saving money sounds like what a responsible adult does and charging more just because you can doesn’t come with universal social approval. Your clients know this if they are hard negotiating on fees they are using that knowledge to their advantage. The premise of the scenario is the freelancer is absorbing the risks of currency exchange. The client is not compensating the freelancer for the currency risk. The only way the freelancer gets compensated is by charging more or placing the risk on the client by requiring payment in the freelancer’s local currency. Neither creates a dependency on a third party, their API’s, business model, or terms of service. All of those are a distraction from doing the things that are the basis of the business.
      • 6y ago
• mariopt 6y ago
  I’ve been I’ve been using TransferWise and Revolut for GBP to Euro and vice-versa. Revolut is the cheapest one and I can not understand the 50 euros charge as the exchange rate is super low. Just checked my Revolt and 1000 USF to EUR is 1090,84, in google the exchange rate would bring me 1091,20. I don’t get your 50 euros difference.
• benkuhn 6y ago
  > Most of them are not classified as banks and run without banking licenses and governmental oversight. They are more convenient and cheaper but definitely a little riskier as well. This is really misleading. (Disclosure: I work for a remittance provider.) It's true that non-bank money service businesses do not operate as banks, but it's totally false that they "run without... governmental oversight" or are "a little riskier." The level of government oversight of non-bank MSB's is extreme by the standards of anything but banking. For example in the US, you have to apply to each state government individually for a license to send transfers from that state. It takes years and is extremely onerous. Many of our applications ran into the hundreds of pages of paperwork and were followed by weeks of on-site examinations plus an intensity of financial auditing usually reserved for companies nearing IPO. (In Europe the situation is better because MSB regulation happens at the EU level. This regulatory difference is a big part of why Europe has a much larger share of great fintech startups compared to other sectors.) On risk, most regulators require money transmitters to insure their liabilities to customers so that, if they ever collapse, the insurer will be able to make their customers whole. In our case, we never have liabilities to customers (because we pay out instantly) but we still have to buy this insurance... kind of a belt-and-suspenders approach.
• mtgx 6y ago
  TW is great but it needs to support invoicing clients monthly, so that using Payoneer is not longer needed.
• mcsweena 6y ago
  If anyone is interested, CurrencyFair are another excellent way to save money on international payments. Similar to Transferwise, you can send money fast from one currency to another at the current exchange rate with far less fees than a bank. They also have a peer-to-peer element, where you can choose your own exchange rate and wait for another customer (sending money in the opposite direction) to accept that rate. If you are willing to wait a little longer to send your money, you can get excellent value using this feature. They currently have an excellent sign up offer at the moment that you can access using my link: https://www.currencyfair.com/rafland/?channel=RMZIY1 https://www.currencyfair.com/rafland/?channel=RMZIY1 (Disclaimer: I currently work there. I love the product and I know you will too:))
  • snappieT 6y ago
    +1 on recommending CurrencyFair - I've found that their fees tend to be lower than TransferWise and I've always had great service from them.
• nabeards 6y ago
  I tried to use TW to transfer from a client’s UK bank account that was in USD, to my US bank account also in USD. I couldn’t find a way to choose this in the estimator, so I contacted tech support. They replied that this was a scenario they didn’t cover. I continue to get regular wires between the accounts, costs $25 in Interbank and my place charges an additional $10. ):
  • vasco 6y ago
    Might be cheaper for you to open a EUR account somewhere with low fees and do 2x transferwise than paying $35 per transfer
    • nabeards 6y ago
      TW support told me they just don’t support an account in another country that isn’t in that country’s native currency. Which seemed odd. This was about a year ago.
• underthensun 6y ago
  I find TW amazing but it doesn't ship debit card to my country (due to my over complex government's legislation). Does anyone knows a bank (can be a fintech) that allows me to open an account all online?
  • livre 6y ago
    Argentina? People have been recommending Payoneer (not a bank) or Dukascopy (online bank). As far as I know Payoneer still ships cards, I'm not sure about Dukascopy. You can open an account 100% online with both of them.
    • underthensun 6y ago
      Thanks for your answer! The country is Brazil. Payoneer - fails to meet my needs because there's no direct way to deposit through a bank, even it's my own bank account. Ask someone else to deposit (by the billing service) every time I need is inviable. And it charges 1-3% per deposit by the costumer. So, I would end up paying that per deposit. Also, it’s too hacky. Dukascopy – I’m researching this one, you give the best answer so far. Allow non-residents to open an account, some fees nonexistent (monthly, annually or inactivity), doesn’t seem to be bureaucratic, the support seems good (even one for my native language is available), ship the card to my country, the bank seems really solid. Sounds really good. I’m finishing my review, looking for good and bad experiences of current uses and possible hidden fees. If you have anything to say about this bank, please, let me know too. :)
      • livre 6y ago
        Sorry for replying a bit late, I'm new here and not getting notifications for replies is something I'm not used to. We have a similar problem with Payoneer, so many restrictions that it's very difficult to deposit to our banks so people go to Uruguay and use their ATMs to get cash or alternatively they use the Payoneer card to buy things. Unfortunately I have zero experience with Dukascopy, if you have a Reddit account you can try asking in /r/Argentina or /r/merval, some people there have accounts with that bank.
• ska 6y ago
  sometimes you will do better with a wire and access to your banks trading desk (not retail exchange. Assumes you can hold an account in senders currency , but worth checking.
• sysashi 6y ago
  I came to the same conclusion (I use Upwork -> TW -> My local bank, instead of Upwork -> local bank, because even with lower transfer amounts upwork's rate is so bad) Although I've noticed an increase in fees over the year or so with TW, especially now. Next time I'm withdrawing from upwork I'm gonna compare rate/fees and check whether TW gives me better outcome. (I feel it might be not true anymore)
• Youden 6y ago
  FWIW, where possible, I advise having both a TransferWise account and a Revolut or Interactive Brokers account. TransferWise is fantastic for receiving money. They have local bank accounts in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD and PLN. However for sending money and converting money, their fees can really suck: for $10k USD -> EUR (EURUSD is one of the most liquid forex pairs), they charge 81 USD in fees, or %0.8. Even for local transfers (which should be free) they charge ~1 USD. Revolut is kinda crap for receiving money (the only local accounts are EUR and GBP, the rest are GB IBANs) but sending and conversion are both free (conversion as long as the amount is <$6k/month). If you use it a lot, they have a ~$100/yr plan that gives you unlimited on both. Interactive Brokers is literally useless for sending and receiving money (they only accept transactions to/from your own accounts) but they're fantastic for conversion. They process your orders directly against the forex market and charge ~1USD per trade for the kinds of trades we're talking about. The downside is that their minimum account balance is pretty high (~$6k IIRC) and they have a $10/month "inactivity" fee if your balance is below $100k and you generate <$10/month in commissions. That said, if you need a brokerage account anyway, their currency conversion is a great bonus. And finally, Charles Schwab is great in the US. They charge minimal markup on deposits and withdrawals in foreign currencies (~0.5-1% depending on amount) and they have a debit visa card with no international transaction fees and Visa's exchange rate (~0.3% spread). They're not the best around but they're really great if you don't want to put your money in the hands of a less-regulated FinTech company that has minimal deposit guarantees.
  • the_svd_doctor 6y ago
    Is there somehow a way to receive with Transferwise and send with Revolut ? I guess not. Then how would it work having both ? Receive in Transferwise a bunch of payments, and once in a while send to your bank. Then once in a while send to revolut, and send smaller payments from there ?
    • Youden 6y ago
      Yes but the transfers between accounts can be fiddly. The options if I remember right are: - All currencies: Top-up Revolut with the TransferWise debit card - this is free and IIRC works for all the currencies TransferWise supports receiving. However there are limits on both the TransferWise side (how much you can spend with the card) and the Revolut side (how much they permit you to top-up with a debit card). The latter limit increases as you use the card. - EUR and GBP: Straight local bank transfer - costs ~$1 but only works for these two currencies. - CHF: Local bank transfer as above - costs ~$1 but requires correctly entering the reference number. - USD: SWIFT - costs ~$5 and takes around a week. - AUD, NZD, PLN: Unsupported. Revolut only has a UK-based IBAN and TransferWise requires local account details for these currencies.
• hackathonguy 6y ago
  I see lots of praise for TransferWise here and I regret not trying them out earlier. For what it's worth, I can add my two cents regarding PayPal. From a customer experience perspective, PayPal is pretty great - the UI is smooth and I like being able to pay with my PayPal balance online. Having said that, their fees are nothing short of exorbitant - for international transfers, if I'm not mistaken, the fee is 4.4% + a fixed price per transaction + 2.5% on top of that if you also want to exchange currencies. A $1,000 bill paid to my PayPal account by a U.S.-based client can easily become $930 or even less by the time it reaches my bank account. I've stopped accepting payments via PayPal for that reason. Furthermore - this isn't personal experience, just word on the street - I hear PayPal Customer Service can be pretty atrocious to merchants, which is another thing I'm not too happy about when it comes to their service.
  • ValentineC 6y ago
    PayPal's customer service is atrocious to consumers as well, especially if you fall between the gaps and get asked to do some weird KYC. Two months ago, they asked me to provide charity information for my personal account, and subsequently limited my receiving/sending privileges. Phone calls to them trying to sort this out have always ended up at some call centre in the Philippines, where the agents can only tell their users that the account limitation is "for their safety". They've also limited the personal account of a friend of mine (who was interestingly enough ex-PayPal) before, also asking for charity information.
• blago 6y ago
  I had a horrible experience with TransferWise. They silently canceled my account for suspected fraud after I'd sent my first transfer. No call, no emails, no questions. I didn't find out until days later when I went to check why my money hasn't been received yet - I was unable to login.
• ilrwbwrkhv 6y ago
  Just use remitly. The best rates I have found so far.
• qwerty456127 6y ago
  Just use crypto.
• kinnth 6y ago
  We've been doing this for 3 years and we sit within EUR, GBP and USD. Rather than doing immediate conversion I sit and wait for various rates to become profitable, im happy being in any of the 3 currencies and so usually oscillate between USD and GBP which has been very profitable in the last year making around 10% net over 3 transactions. Can highly recommend TransferWise.
• sealthedeal 6y ago
  I am the CEO of Routefusion (routefusion.co). While we don't handle individual international freelancer payments, we have the most comprehensive API for companies to send cross-border/international payments to contractors, or SMBs, etc. Based on my experience, here are some recommendations for whom I would use in no particular order. Deel (letsdeel.com): They are an amazing option for paying and hiring freelancers/remote employees. They have a great feature where you can sign up as an individual contractor. They shine on their simplicity of onboarding and scheduling. They also offer a free consultation if you have tax questions etc. Transferwise: They are great. If you are making individual payments you cannot go wrong. I wouldn't want to operate my payroll off of them, but they are great for one-off payments. (I used them to send payments to Italy for my wedding) Pilot (pilot.co): Pilot makes it ridiculously easy to pay your international team members. They handle payroll, benefits, and compliance for international employees and contractors. They have some great tech behind their products, utilizing integrations like Plaid to get you up and running fast, they also beat TW in currency pricing all day. Rippling (rippling.com) They have a great HR product and domestic payroll solution. They have recently launched an international payroll solution and it is just a great as their domestic. Payoneer: Payoneer has been the industry standard for quite some time. I think the only downside is they are expensive (exchange rates are not competitive). Still would be a great option, but would not be my first option. If you have any questions about moving money internationally, I would love to chat with you and answer them. Whether is helps Routefusion or not, more than happy to spread knowledge! :) founders@routefusion.co https://www.linkedin.com/in/coltonseal/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/coltonseal/
  • nilanp 6y ago
    Hey - if you are interested in using the TransferWise API to power your payments drop me a line: n at tranferwise dot com Nilan
  • notdang 6y ago
    I think you are missing the main point why so many prefer Payoneer. It's not about the fees, it's about having a card in a different country that your fiscal residency country.
• kumarski 6y ago
  tldr: guy compares stuff, says use transferwise.
  • tradertef 6y ago
    .. and shares his affiliate link to transferwise at the end.
• rchowe 6y ago
  What is the secret sauce to TransferWise? Are banks greedy, or do they have access to an exchange market that nobody else does? I've avoided them because whenever I look up wire transfer fees I get their SEO'd blog posts, but it seems from this thread that they have a legitimately good product. I use a local bank account for incoming wires so that, if there is a problem, I can go down to the bank and talk to someone in person instead of being subject to the customer service whims of a tech startup. For me, that's worth the $10/transfer fee (though I bill in USD so I don't see forex or origination fees).
  • alephnan 6y ago
    > Are banks greedy And Western Union. *I've worked at one of the major remittance companies.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    The secret sauce is that TW doesn't actually do currency exchange. They have their own pools of different currencies, and receive/disburse into/from those pools rather than selling/buying. So if you send $100 to someone who will receive EU, TW doesn't actually change $100 into EU; they credit your $100 to their dollar pool, and pay the recipient from their EU pool. As long as the pool sizes remain well matched with the inflow/outflow in that currency, TW isn't actually having to deal with any currency conversion at all. This is simultaneously similar to and utterly different from what banks have done for international transfers. The difference is that TW is free to take on the risk of the rates changing because the risk is reduced substantively.
    • rchowe 6y ago
      That's really interesting! They only support disbursements in six currencies (AUD, EUR, GBP, NZD, PLN, and USD), but they can accept eighteen currencies; presumably because they already have a large balance of those and they are relatively stable -- the one question mark for me would be PLN, but I would guess that it might be an important remote work market. It seems the main difference is the lack of a requirement for an intermediate bank or banks; even a large international bank like HSBC might have to go through a third party for currency conversion in certain circumstances. It seems a lot easier if you are only making increases / decreases to your own balance sheet (cut out the middle man, no settlement requirements, etc). Presumably you issue bonds to get the to do this with, which is relatively safe because it stays as cash and you know your churn rate. Does TransferWise have any levers they can pull besides halting disbursements in a given currency if there is a sudden devaluation, e.g. Poland goes bankrupt and PLN goes to zero?
• yourapostasy 6y ago
  I have overseas clients whose accounts payables are completely inflexible and insist upon mailing me paper checks. I’m using a forex broker at the moment who gets me mid-market plus about 1.2% to convert into USD. Does anyone have a better way to receive paper checks that doesn’t involve me establishing a bank account in the sending nation?
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• ttrbls 6y ago
  Just use Revolut for business or even Paypal.