lansbury

Their exchange rate better be good as their terms and conditions state £10 - £15 fee per transaction.

andrewlohnes

how do you find out what states World First work in? I can't seem to find it on their site or with a google search.

lansbury

I don't think it's on their web site. Give them a call and ask. The only one I know that has the details of which States they can send money to on their web site is MoneyCorp.

andrewlohnes

Cheers, out of all the ones I have looked at World First and XE give near identical rates. World First was slightly better yesterday but today XE has a better rate.

My bank, Halifax, is awful compared to these 2.

ollieoftheuk

I've used Transferwise about 10 times now and I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed. You get the true rate, and their fees are comparatively very low. Because it's transferred using the principles behind peer-to-peer transfer, the money is transferred at it's true value so the only thing you pay is the fee.

Only issue is if you need funds transferred super quick, it tends to take around 2-5 working days.

MrsMouse

Hi Peeps

Thanks for all the tips, I had to transfer some monies this week to pay the deposit on our house and following your experiences/advice, I used WorldFirst. I got a rate of 1.7011, no fees, so I was very pleased. The account was so quick to set up and the customer service was excellent; the monies transferred from my UK account to their UK account to my US account all in one day. Simples!

If only the paperwork involved in buying a house here was so easy!!

p.s. Thanks for all tips, I have been reading BE for the last 6 months and you have all really helped in lots of areas with my move.

DottM

I have used Xoom and found no issues. The sites look very similar so maybe the same company in the background?

Pulaski

It's certainly possible that both are served by the same operational organization, and it could be a thirdparty that doesn't own either of the web sites, though it is also possible that they just both bought the same webpage front end. Why pay big bucks for a custom web front end if you can just buy one off the shelf and insert your own logo and graphics?

lansbury

If you go to the xoom web site and click on the "send money to" the USA is not listed. Which I guess as they are US based isn't strange. But can they transfer money into the US?

DottM

ah I have only used it for transferring money out of the US. Its normally really quick and in my UK account within an hour.

lansbury

Well I thought I'd give TransferWise a try with a small exchange.

It cost me a fee of 0.5% to exchange at the mid rate, as against my usual broker who doesn't charge a fee but would have used an exchange rate about 1.15% below the mid point. Also my usual broker sends by wire transfer which costs me a $8 fee from my US credit union. No such fee with TransferWise.

The downside as has been discussed is that the transfer isn't made for a couple of days, and at the rate when the transfer is made. You can't lock in the rate, but once the deal is made you can set the percentage the rate can't drop more than and the transfer still be made. In my trial run the rate actually went up about half a cent. You can get an immediate transfer without the two days delay at an additional fee of 0.9%, which would shift the balance to my usual broker.

Plus side for me is that in order to get with 1.15% with my usual broker I have to wait about 10 weeks until I have a large enough sum to get that rate. Exchange smaller sums and the rate is worse. With TransferWise the sum exchanged doesn't effect the rate, so I could bring my pension over every month and be no worse off.

ms786110

I used currencydirect this week.

confirmed the deal on monday with the dealer. transferred the money to them on tuesday and the money was in the US bank account on wednesday and also they gave a better rate than the rest of the companies especially xetrade.com.

hope this helps

oh yeah, they don't charge a fee either!

andrewlohnes

I registered with World First today and had a phone call from them, I asked if they dealt with Arizona and they said no, but, because I'm based in the UK and I'm sending money TO Arizona rather than FROM Arizona then it shouldn't be a problem. Does that sound right? It seemed like he wasn't 100% sure himself.

lansbury

There are different rules if you live in the UK, as opposed to living in the US, and sending UK originating funds.