TransferWise
The special supplier TransferWise has developed a revolutionary concept, which reduces the fees of international transactions significantly. That annoys banking groups and helps people to save money!
TransferWise mediates international payments in a way that only the payment information is exchanged, however, the money stays in the country. This saves a lot of fees and is faster.
Want to read the article to the end or open the website of the provider up front ► www.transferwise.com ✅
What is expensive in international transactions?
The path of the money through correspondent banks to the abroad as well as the currency exchange.
What distinguishes TransferWise?
At TransferWise, the money stays in the country, only the payment information travels abroad.
Revolutionary concept!
Example: Germany-USA-Transaction
- Anna from Germany wants to transfer money from her German current account to her US students account for her studies abroad in New York.
- Bob from Los Angeles has ordered machine parts for his company from Germany and must now pay the bill.
- Instead of using the expensive international transactions of banks, in which money is sent twice across the Atlantic Ocean, Anna and Bob try TransferWise without knowing of each other.
- Anna transfers her savings for the student life in New York to the collective account of TransferWise in Germany and Bob transfers the amount due for the machine parts to the collective account of TransferWise in the USA.
- Instead of sending money across the Atlantic Ocean, only the payment information will be sent: From the US TransferWise account, “Bob’s money” is sent to Anna’s account in New York and from the German TransferWise account, “Anna’s money” is sent to the machine manufacturer in Stuttgart.
- Therefore, there are no fees for an international bank transfers, because these are free or low-cost national bank transfers.
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However, a small fee applies, because TransferWise operates the national pool accounts and ensures with a sophisticated computer system that all national payments are made and match the international payment information.
For small transactions, the fee is only Euro 1, but increases with the transfer amount, since a larger number of “swap partners” must be found for larger transactions.
Until Euros 2,000, TransferWise wins any comparison for international transactions. In the USA, TransferWise even leads to up to USD 10,000, despite the volume-based fees.
TransferWise – multiple test winner
That TransferWise manages this process excellently, was proven by our own test transfers to the USA, Poland and the Czech Republic (linked pages in German language). On top of that, TransferWise was the test winner in all three test series!
Is TransferWise complicated?
No! At least not for us customers, who want to transfer money abroad. The really demanding task is the bundling and separating of the many national and international transfer information, but this is done by the TransferWise computer.
Example: England – Italy
In this English-speaking clip, the system of TransferWise is demonstrated:
Example: Euro-area – Poland
For better detail, we show you the illustration of our article international transaction to Poland:
The ideal case. In daily practice, there are often three or more parties involved in the payment and information exchange.
Trying and appreciating advantages …
At best, try TransferWise for yourself. You will find how easy TransferWise really works. Before you sign up for free at TransferWise, please read the following benefits:
- extremely favourable international transactions to many countries and many different currencies
(and there are more to come every year) - direct payments to the bank account of the beneficiary abroad
(on average just as fast as or even faster than a bank transfer) - sending money to an e-mail address is possible, if the bank information is not known
- saving of banking and contact details; the next transactions to the same contact will then be a matter of a few mouse clicks
- transparent preview of fees
- favourable fictitious exchange rates, because no actual currency exchange takes place
- free registration.
“Try it now!”
Further advantages at US-transactions
US banks often charge an extra fee in the amount of US$ 10 to 25 for the credit of incoming international transactions. As our experience has shown and was confirmed by some letters from readers, the fee is waived regularly, as the payout to the US account of TransferWise counts as a national transaction.
This is a double-saving at US-transactions!
Further exciting subjects:
Images heads: Pekchar, fotolia.com
Can you set up recurring payments (Dauerauftrag) with Transferwise?
That is really a good idea! Sadly, I never did that. My office will make a research.
At this point, TransferWise does not offer the feature of recurring payments, you have to do the transfer manually. The system can save the recipient’s data, though, so that the next manual payment can be done easier and quicker.
Hi Sussanne,
Thank you for your response. I wrote Transferwise to ask the same question and currently, you are correct, it is not possible. BUT they said, that in a few months it will be possible. GOOD TO KNOW 🙂
Cool! Thank you for your engagement 🙂
May I pay to some firm for serive provided to me, or it is strictly transfers between phisical persons like Western Union?
We use TransferWise for private and commercial payments. This is possible within one account. You can state in each case from which account and with which sender name you want to send the money.
It is very useful to have everything within one account.
Hi Gregor,
I live in Germany where I work as a freelancer and have a current account in EUR at Unicredit.
A new client of mine from the US, whose only option to pay me is via wire transfer, will pay me every month ~$800 into my EUR account. For this purpose, they asked for my IBAN, Swift and Intermediary bank.
The client requested that my bank must provide the Swift and Intermediary bank details, so I’m not sure I can work around that and use Transferwise instead.
What is the best option for me to be charged the lowest possible charges for these transfers?
Thanks in advance for your advice!
Hi Ioana,
That is a very interesting question!
You are correct: If your client does a normal bank transfer with IBAN, Swift and Interme-diary bank, then you will receive considerably less money than with a payment via TransferWise.
The question is, how can you convince your client to sign up with TransferWise? Be-cause in order to send you money, the company/client need to sign up there. That is very easy and maybe takes about 1-2 minutes.
Then you only need to give the client your e-mail address, and he basically sends mon-ey to your e-mail adresse 😉
From TransferWise you will get an e-mail with a request to state your payment info, in order to receive the payment on your bank account. If you yourself are already a Trans-ferWise-Customer with this e-mail address, the money will probably be transferred to your account directly. Of course, you will receive a message about the payment anyway.
Alternatively you can state your German bank details (IBAN + SWIFT). There is no in-termediary bank with TransferWise.
The question remaining is how your client deposits the money with TransferWise … you could send him this instruction: https://www.amerikakonto.com/en/transfer-money-usa-germany/ – and also refer to the advance, that he/they can save on the fee for sending out an international transfer – because the money will be taken from the US bank account via ACH system without further fee. Very advantageous!
Does that help?
We wish you success!
Hi Gregor,
Thanks so much for your reply.
I signed up with Transferwise a couple years ago but haven’t used it yet. This client is a large company that works with hundreds of independent contractors. Not sure they’ll work around their standard payment procedures they’ve been using for years to pay me via Transferwise, unless they see how this benefits them.
I’ll definitely suggest them to pay me this way. It won’t hurt trying.
I have to pay a bill and it is important that the exact invoiced amount in USD arrives. Is this possible with Transfer-Wise? (concerning this matter, I have made bad experiences with the bank system/correspondent bank)
Yes, this is one of the big advantages of TransferWise. One can either state:
In your case, you choose option two. I always do that too. In contrast to some other transfer service providers tested by me, the amount always arrives to the exact cent with TransferWise.
Can you send money from the USA to Russia to the Sberbank-card?
Yes, this is possible. TransferWise debits through the ACH-system from the US-bank account and can then transfer to a Russian account with account number and BIK or deposit directly to a Russian card (also Sberbank).
I kindly ask for your recommendation in two situations:
1. I am in Ukraine and would like to receive a transfer from a customer from Germany. She has no Transferwise account, and I have just recently opened an account (1 day ago). How can I request a payment? Or how should that work in this case?
2. In which currency should an account be opened at Transferwise? And what currency should be sent by the customer? Is that basically important?
Best is to recommend to your customer opening a TransferWise user account. That is easy and without obligations.
You are welcome to refer to the German version of our special portal as a source of information and instructions.
Alternatively, supplement your TransferWise account with the Borderless-Konto. This way, you can get a German IBAN (account number) and your customer can transfer from her main bank within Germany in Euros to your TransferWise account.
Then you can transfer in UAH, USD or keep the amount in EUR.
Does that help you?
Using the TransferWise account.
Payments outside the SEPA system are made under the name of Currency Cloud. So not your own name.
There is only a reference of 10 digits.
This gives problems to transfer money to brokerage accounts etc and the money is refunded.
With the reason no third party transfer allowed.
How to transfer money to a brokerage account cheaply?
On rather general questions I can only answer in a general way. I occasionally buy property in Florida and many people have told me that TransferWise’s transfer will not be accepted. In my case, it has worked to 100 percent. With some transactions, it worked perfectly, while for others it needed to be discussed first, as in the USA the ACH system is used for booking.
Transfers from TransferWise to my securities account have been working 100 percent as well. This works great.
However, as a German specialty portal I cannot speak for all other countries, but only help out with some of my own experiences abroad. In the US, I get my money from the local checking account via my brokerage account. For this, I do not need TransferWise and you cannot debit a TransferWise account with direct debit. TransferWise may not be the best choice for you. The reason might be that the broker only has a collective account for customers and not, as is common in other countries, provides an individual account number for each customer. In that case, the purpose of transfer is obsolete.