Cheap International Money Transfers with TransferWise!

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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