Geordieborn

Think it wise. I would look at getting a currencyfair account as well if they are still better for transferring amounts over circa £300 as they used to be. Neither used to cost you to have an account open, so it makes sense to me to be covered.

philat98

I am quite impressed with Transferwise. All the verifications were done in one day. I have linked the account to NSI, Paypal, Amazon and a building society account. Just have to see how it goes now.
Customer service is pretty bad at Nationwide. After 5 minutes of account validation they told me all the call centre staff had gone home early because of the Covid crisis. Transferwise cannot be much worse.
I like Currencyfair but it doesnt offer a debit card or account number as far as I know.

Ruby2

I’m impressed with TranferWise too and I’m in the process of linking my TransferWise account to other accounts. Did you manage to link your new TransferWise account with nsandi on the nsandi web-site?

Geordieborn

I used both Transferwise (TW) and CurrencyFair (CF) for a number of years, both were excellent, with transfers within a day at times by the end. Transferwise has a great advantage now having a debit card, but CF like I said was a better rate for amounts over 250-300. Another advantage of CF is the ability to set the rate you are looking for to buy or sell at. This often was beneficial when the rate was going up as the buying rate triggered overnight. I'm pretty sure TW didn't have the debit card option when we were using them and in any case we also had a UK house, so could get the likes of Caxton (for cash) and/or Fairfx (for creadit card), we could use both for Euro payments online and in store.

philat98

Yes it linked with Nsandi. The Skipton BS said it was an invalid account number. I havent tested if the transfers actually work yet.
The debit card is quite good because you can use multiple currencies.

scrubbedexpat077

As we are on the subject of Transferwise, can I hijack this thread? Is it better to send money to a Euro account directly or should I send the amount from pounds to my Euro Transferwise Bordreless account and then send the money to the destination account in Euro? I hope my question is clear.

Geordieborn

Not too sure I understand malcom1970, but if a Euro account as in Italian or French etc to another Euro account I can't see why you would use a Transferwise account.Under SEPA it should not cost, whereas TW would charge a small fee and add more hassle. If you need to convert from pounds, then using Transferwise should be the cheaper option.

scrubbedexpat077

What I meant was:
1) Send money from my UK account (in pounds) to a Euro account via Transferwise
or:
2) Send money from my UK account in pounds to my borderless account in Euro and then send the money from the borderless account to a Euro account.

Which one of the two is cheaper?

Geordieborn

Well I’m not too sure how often they have changed their fees over the time, but they are certainly different from when we used them. So now they have a fixed charge of £0.26 per transaction and 3.5% of the amount. So basically you have to know the amount to be sent. Last I looked CurrencyFair had a flat £3/trans.

In answer to the specific question, there are certainly UK banks that don’t charge for SEPA transfers, but even then it depends rates and/or your external Euro account charges whatever that is these days…. It is not known yet if the UK will remain in SEPA land..

Ruby2

I think it’s 0.35%, not 3.5%. A bit more reasonable!

Ruby2

Same either way.

Geordieborn

Absolutely correct 0.35%, stupid sober I did not see the error. My excuse is like most sh!t companies these days it took me so long to find their rates/cost....

Geordieborn

I doubt this is correct...

Ruby2

You’re right! The variable fee (0.35%) remains the same either way. The fixed fee is either 26p or 32p.

Mr David

A Revolut debit card could, also, be worth investigating. Works in a very similar way as a Transferwise debit card.