The Cumbrian

from Nationwide Building society into an Australian bank. I know there is a way of doing it for free. Can someone please advise on the best way of doing this.
Thank You.

rammygirl

It is rarely totally free. You either pay a small fee or you get a a few points off the exchange rate. Easiest is TransferWise, open an account with them and maybe one or two more FX companies like Moneycorp or OFX and compare. Sometimes I get more by paying a fee sometimes not. You need to ask how many dollars will land in your account. Also double check with the Australian bank, there should be no fees for receiving the money if it is sent to them in $$. I am also with Nationwide and I simply do a bank transfer (free) to the FX company and the $$ appear in my account the same day with TransferWise.

The Cumbrian

thank you. Will check it out.

SoCalDon

I used SendFX to buy a couple of items in China and I was very pleased with the transactions Dave Caldaralo on 0756195709 was my rep and he was awesome. I need to move some money from my bank in England soon and he reckons to be 4% cheaper than the banks.

Pulaski

The fees are charged in one, or a combination of three ways - a fixed fee, a percentage fee, and a spread on the exchange rate. Whichever way you transfer there will always be some sort of charge, but some companies will tell you there is no "fee", but won't give you as good an exchange rate. As Rammygirl said, the only objective measure is how many AUD you will receive in exchange for your GBP.

FWIW I have consistently heard that Transferwise is usually the cheapest overall/ gives you the most currency for your GBP.

tomar

We have used transferwise every month for many years. as All our income comes from UK. We can’t fault them so far. Often the money is in our Australian bank account the next day, and the rates are always competitive
There shouldn’t be any problem with the amount you want to send.

tomar

Post deleted

rabble_rouser

I used Transferwise 5 years ago to transfer several thousand pounds to AUD. I would recommend, although that was 5 years ago. I got most of it through at a good rate with no fees. I remember for the same amount Barclays wanted to screw me over for 400 pounds.

ozdog

I have used ErisFX for 10 years and have been very happy with the service

Perthmover92

Isn’t it possible to transfer money to any account worldwide by simply using the IBAN? I know my account I can push a simple button that lets me input IBAN instead of account number and sort code, so surely that would just transfer at the current exchange rate at the bank?

It may be me being a little silly.

Pulaski

But you will get the foreign exchange rate that banks offer on small exchange amounts, which is horrible - you could easily lose 5% to a poor exchange rate, and then have to pay wires fees on top of that. First a bit of background, nobody get the published "mid" exchange rate - there is always a "spread", as you may recall from buying foreign cash at the bureaux de change at the airport - you can exchange £1,000 for A$450, but only exchange A$450 for £800 - the difference being the "spread" that the bureaux takes to fund their business. It is the same for transfers made through your bank so if the published "mid" exchange rate is £0.52 = A$1, the bank would probably only give you, say £475 for your A$1,000 (before wire fees) and only A$850 for your £475.

So for example if you wanted to send A$2,000 to the UK your bank (using a published "mid" exchange rate of £0.52 = A$1) would probably charge around $A50 to send the wire, and then take A$1,950 and exchange it for say, £963. And then the receiving bank in the UK may well charge another £15 to receive the wire, leaving a net £948 in your account in the UK.

Using an on-line remitting service, the exchange rate "cost" could be as little as 0.5% and with no wire fees, so your A$2,000 would be converted to £1,035 and credited in the UK with no wire fee deducted at that end either, so under the examples above, you'd get 9% more sterling in your account by using a remitter than if you used your bank to make the exchange and transfer. .... So I could argue that yes, you would be silly to use your bank and the IBAN to make a transfer (of a small amount).

Oh, and not all countries use IBANs.

scot47

Banks and other moneychangers do nothing "for free" The task is to find a reasonable way to do it. I would take Pulaski's advice.

Pulaski

Isn't that always the best advice?

abner

Unfortunately one formerly good option, OFX (part of the OzForex group), has turned into an absolute disaster from a customer service perspective. They once had excellent cross-rates and decent customer service, but my old man's last attempt to transfer funds to supplement my daughter's school fees turned into an absolute bloody disaster.

We'd done several such transfers over many years with the company, but all of a sudden it was we think your identity is fake, justify this, justify that, raking an 84-year-old retiree over the coals when all he wanted to do was support his grand-daughters education, just as he'd done in many previous years.

Never ever ever again.

Avoid, avoid, avoid OFX / Ozforex!!!

Sir Spangle

I came here to open a thread but looks like this one is current and along the same lines.

I was wondering what the *real* fee was that people ended up paying when transferring large/larger sums with Transferwise, OFX, or similar? Say I was transferring $100,000 from the US to the UK, which I am looking to do, was the dollar amount fee you were charged *actually* what was quoted at the beginning, or were there mystery fees adding up to more in the end?

Right now I see Transferwise would claim to charge me $454.39 to transfer that 100k, and in my UK account I would eventually see £76,359.15. For those that went through a similar process, were the equivalent amounts quoted in fact true?