Banking - Transferwise

[Manny]

I thought I'd give Transferwise another crack as HIFX isnt what it was since being bought by XE.

Sent four figures £ sterling to Russia last night. Sent in Roubles converted prior from £ by TW. Decent exchange rate (£20 shy of XE mid market rate), no added charges, and you can send right to a debit card rather than just a bank account (as is more common in Russia).

But get this, from hitting the button it did the transfer in seven seconds. 

And indeed it had arrived - as fast as a domestic FPS. That instant transfer would have taken 2 days with HIFX.

I'll try them with dollars to China in a few weeks and see if they can do that now as they couldn't before. I might be a Transferwise convert......

[andrewfi]

Not all transfers are near-instant. When they are not I tend to assume that the receiving bank is holding the money for a while.

But, yes, that's something that has improved a whole lot recently.

[msmoby]

When sending dosh and there's a 'delay' - it's nearly always the bank

I can send money to Russia in seconds using TFwise or paysend.com, but - occasionaly - it takes 2/3 working days .

Example.. sending dosh to Georgia - I can even SEE it has arrived in seconds - but the funds availability can take 1 working day

[Manny]

I tried the paysend one night when I needed to do something fast. It wanted all kinds of verification and would take days to set up. I gave up.

[msmoby]

May be it's different now for newbies, but I recently went through a second annual threshold ( 14K) and had to send bank statements...  it took 11 hours ( overnight) to approve the upgrade to my limit

ALL such firm reqire this info, now ..Govt anti-money laundering regs

[Manny]

Transferwise is now a proper thing. Not like when I first tried it a year or two back.

I noted the other day it took seven seconds to transfer money to Sberbank in Russia. 

So I just tried Transferwise to send some dollars to China, nice and painless and not expensive. I then sent some more dollars to Singapore and paid for both in Sterling. Fast and easy. 

Sending US dollars outside of the US carries a small fee, but I get that as they'll need to jump through some regulatory hoops and or use US BS avoidance techniques to do that.

I paid a bloke in the US some money the other day, he sent me Transferwise details with UK numbers on it to pay him in £ Sterling. Hmm, I need to get on this I thought. I wonder if I can get some local US bank details to get paid if I do something there? The answer is yes. Free.

So I finally took a look at the borderless account Andrewfi speaks so highly of.

What a great thing. Opened one in seconds, uploaded a passport copy, I now have a debit card on the way and a balance in Chinese RMB I can spend fee free when I'm next in China. What a great service (Assuming the card works not like those horrid Paypal Mastercards of several years ago).

Serious question for Moby: Why do you use Paysend over Transferwise when it does all the things I'd imagine you need it to do for where you go and what you do?

[andrewfi]

With regard to your Transferwise debit card.

I love it and would not want to be without it BUT from time to time it just does not work. For paying proper big stuff though I guess you'd use the payment options within the app and put it into payees bank accounts.

For example, it usually will not work on Spanish toll booths. Occasionally Tap and Pay does not work as it should. I don't know why. I would always keep a backup card to hand, but then as a seasoned traveller that's something you'd always do anyway so hardly an issue.

Also, get the app for your phone. It uses fingerprint access for security and is both fast and easy to use. I find it more useful than the desktop/web-based version and feel it is more secure than using somebody else's PC.

[Manny]

For example, it usually will not work on Spanish toll booths. Occasionally Tap and Pay does not work as it should.

Does chip and PIN work? Assuming the card is enabled for that?

I do like the idea of having the functionality to have folk pay using local bank details in China, the US, Oz, the Eurozone or wherever. It makes you want to make an effort to generate a few sales in those places so you have some walking about money on hand when travelling.

[andrewfi]

The cards, like all European cards, are chip and pin and, usually, it is fine. I got my card very early on when the program was in beta and was warned there might be occasional issues - and there were! It wasn't the card but the payment system backend. There are lots of payment processors and not all were up to speed out of the gate.

Chip and pin works fine. Road tolls are not chip and pin, just chip. As I recall, the chip on the card carries a record of the last few purchases and is updated at each use with the current available balance. That's to enable purchases when connectivity between the terminal and payment processor is not working.

My guess is that for some reason the offline balance is sometimes not being updated often enough so chip only, offline, purchases may not get the necessary authorisation. One is can be hitting toll booths every hour or less so slow, or missing, updates from the toll booths would leave an invalid balance and is probably flagged on the chip.

I'd not worry about it. Think of it this way, if there was a catastrophe and your Transferwise card stopped working completely then all you need do is transfer your Transferwise balance to another card and carry on. As you now know that takes just a few seconds to do.

[Manny]

I'd not worry about it. Think of it this way, if there was a catastrophe and your Transferwise card stopped working completely then all you need do is transfer your Transferwise balance to another card and carry on. As you now know that takes just a few seconds to do.

Indeed, when I'm next in China I plan to get a Great Wall card so I can do the WeChat Pay thing with a phone like everyone else does. But I need a bridge between that and UK source wonga at norra lorra money, which the borderless jobby seems to enable.

[msmoby]

Serious question for Moby: Why do you use Paysend over Transferwise when it does all the things I'd imagine you need it to do for where you go and what you do?

Because
1/ Transferwise more often had 'delays'  - blaming the local bank .... erhaps true.. but Paysend had them less often ..When I send money to Russia - using a computer - the recipient gets an sms that the money is there

2/ we have local bank cards in UK, CY, GE, RU  - so we send the money to them

3/ I recommended a Norwegian / Cypriot to Transferwise' borderless account and he encountered delays and it often did not work in filling stations ..

He went to Revolut .. 


IF RU parts ways withthe VISA / Mcard system and goes completely over to MIR - I'll still be able to order Chinese stuff..

[andrewfi]

Perfect!

[Manny]

So I thought I'd bang the drum for Transferwise a bit more as I've used it a lot more now.

I've used it recently to send varying four figure USD amounts to China, Hong Kong and Singapore. It is very fast mostly (can be instant but sometimes takes a day or two).

I've sent a few more instant payments to Russian cards too.

I sent a few HKD to a helper in Hong Kong, and I encountered this that Moby touched upon:

Transferwise more often had 'delays'  - blaming the local bank .... perhaps true..

It was only £90 or something and it took several days after first telling me it would be instant. I sent a few screenshots to the helper so they knew I wasn't pulling their leg. I've had one of two other delays "we are making further checks" or some such, but they are mostly a few hours. The odd one is next day. One or two were 2 days. Still pretty fast by international wire standards anyway.

You can have a "bank account" in lots of countries, the US for example, so USAians can pay you using their own banking system they know and like, and in dollars. So they feel warm and fuzzy with that and it's less hassle for them.

You can't have a "bank account" in China yet, so I can't yet use it with WeChat Pay, but most here won't care about that I reckon.

If you spend money in a currency you dont hold or dont have enough of, USD for example, it simply painlessly converts some money from the best balance you do have for the purpose. And saves you getting spanked by your UK bank for a "foreign transaction" if paying in dollars for something.

Case in point, we are having the folks over from Russia on a visit. I did their UK visa application online last night, and the UK visa system, in Russia, charges in USD! 

The lunacy of the UK charging Russians in USD aside, using a UK card denominated in £ would attract charges for that, but not with Transferwise. You authorise the transaction on the (very cool) app, and it did an instant conversion from £ at happy rates and no charges. I used it again tonight to buy my daughter some girl stuff in dollars from AliExpress. It struck me that those travelling to the US who have to pay their visa fee ESTA thing, I recall that is charged in dollars so no UK bank charges there either using the luminous green card.

There's lots of blokes here sending bits of cash all over the place in various currencies and Transferwise is a no brainer IMO.

[andrewfi]

I think that delays are at the bank end, although, in general it seems to have improved a lot in recent months.

[msmoby]

So, did you try Paysend, yet?

I cannot, currently, recommend the app as it will not accept a new VISA card I have scanned but from the PC all works great. The recipient gets an sms to confirm the transfer from the PC (optional and free, but reassuring to the recipient) ..not available via the app

Russia, to Sber Bank usually seconds...beware of weekends and  public holidays

Georgia: instant transfer but the bank does not clear the money for 1 working day...you see it..but not available..

Cyprus: same issue as Georgia..but my bank has new owners ...so may improve

HK.. instant...

The principle involved is peer to peer...Your money never leaves your country..they match your transfer to someone in your recipients country.

[Manny]

So, did you try Paysend, yet?

No there was a delay setting up the account and by the time they did it I had used Transferwise. And I haven't had any reason yet to use another service.