Paphos Life

Just like to sing the praises of TransferWise who I used for the first time last night.

At 6.30pm last night I placed an order with a Belgian company for a value of €577.74. I had 2 options for payment - 'bankwire' or Paypal.

For Paypal there was a 4% surcharge, making the total €600.85. This would be converted into sterling by Paypal at a their rate of 1.13 and so £531.73 would be debited against my UK bank account.

Not so happy with the 4% or PayPal's rate of 1.13 ( would have accepted a 2% surcharge and my credit card's rate of 1.17) so I investigated 'bankwire' which was new to me.

Reluctant to use Santander because of their charges and exchange rate, I looked at TransferWise. I was amazed.

I joined up straight away with TransferWise. Their website is a breeze to use. Locked into a rate of 1.17592 at 7pm last night and their fee was only £2.46. The exact euro amount of €577.74 was guaranteed to be sent for a total cost of £493.77 - a saving of nearly £38 compared to the Paypal route.

By 7.15pm last night I had transferred £493.77 from Santander to TransferWise and at 11.25am this morning I received an email from the company in Belgium telling me that my payment of €577.74 had been received.

Well done TransferWise. Absolutely fantastic service.

I've used TransferWise for a few years now and always had excellent service. I transferred some money last month transaction made in the morning and the money was credited into my Cyprus bank account by early afternoon. I also found their exchange rates are better that CF.

I did look at Currency Fair. I suspect they may be better value for larger amounts.

But for me, they fell down by not being able to guarantee me an exchange rate until they recived my money from Santander.

In the few hours that it took my £s to arrive there was the possibility that the exchange rate might have moved against me, meaning my Belgian company would not have received the full amount and I would have had to do a second transaction to make up the difference.

Obviously if you are sending your own money from your UK bank account to your Cyprus bank account this doesn't matter.

For me, this was a third party transaction and they absolutely had to receive the right amount in euro.

I'm a great believer in customer service being the key differentiator .. how a company beats the competition in acquiring and retaining customers .. TransferWise have acquired one very happy customer in me!

I could not agree more - excellent service and of course you can stipulate the exact amount you want the recipient to receive. I also like the fact that you can pay by debit card( a max of 2.5k per transaction)

We use Currency Fair, but as stated, that is for transferring to our bank account rather than direct payment for goods.

What with the exchange rate being what it is, it is so nice to be able to get a relatively decent rate.

We also use currency fair and are delighted with there system. The charge is always £3.00 what ever the amount.

Transfer wise use the Mid Market rate which is pretty good and then make a charge dependent on the amount. I think they charged me €12 for sending €2500. I also used Currency Solutions who gave a "free" transfer but not such a good rate as Transferwise so really there was very little difference except because I could use my Debit Card with Transferwise the money was in my Bank in England usually within 3 hours. I have used them as I say to transfer money back to my UK Bank but also to pay invoices . There was just one firm that for some reason they could not accept but all other payments were fine.

I know several people who are very happy with TransferWise, but for us, moving large amounts of money for our house build and other large projects, the €3 flat rate from CurrencyFair made it a no brainier to use them. They seem to be the two best players in the market - depending on the circumstances. As an ex banker i wouldn't recommended using UK high street banks compared to these two in terms of rates, and I hate paying more fees than I have to!

Ian

I need to move a large amount of money very quickly to cover our Cypriot house purchase - which way, Currency Fair or Transferwise please?

They are both good Express Pete but if it is a large amount then I would compare the two - easy with Transferwise as you just put in your figures and get the quote on line but you may have to ring Currency Fair or indeed try Currency Solutions who actually have an Office in Paphos and are also very good. As has already been said Transferwise often only take a couple of hours but I think that is when you do it by Debit Card which is no good for large amounts unless you do it by instalments as we did when we were moving our money back to the UK.

Just to confirm that you don't have to ring Currency Fair - it's all done online very easily. I too prefer the fixed €3 fee and competitive exchange rate.

Jeanne

I agree with Jeanne, no phone calls needed. Once you have registered with Currency Fair the transaction is done online and costs €3..

Trev..

Funny this subject coming up now . I am having a problem with TW , I transferred some money last Wednesday and it still has not arrived yet . I have never had a problem with them until now , I will let you know when they sort it out .

Thank you everyone. Feeling a tad frustrated today as our bank (Lloyds) won't transfer a significant amount via chaps to transferwise unless I visit the bank in person, so out on one flight today and back on another tomorrow gggrrrr

I must say that for the saving of just a few pounds, I would never use an intermediary outfit. TransferWise's advert on the radio says something along the lines of "instead of transferring straight from your UK bank to your bank in Cyprus, you send the money to us instead". Alarm bells, delays etc. Yes, I'm sure they work most of the time, but are the small savings worth the risk?

Depends on what you call "small" David. I'd say a saving of 25k is considerable

Expresspete wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2017 9:59 am Depends on what you call "small" David. I'd say a saving of 25k is considerable

Eh? 25K savings?

I transferred a reasonably large amount of money (150k+) 6 years ago to buy a property and the charge (from LloydsTSB, I should add) was a fraction of that which you quote, so I don't follow how 25k can be saved. Unless, you're talking millions, in which case I certainly wouldn't use an intermediary!

Currency Fair leads and others will follow. At only £3.00 to transfer ANY amount it is simple .

The above post show that whoever you use you need to know the final amount you will get after the deal and after the charges..

Yes but if you check it out they may only charge £3 but they will not give such a good rate as transferwise for example so each transaction you are considering needs to be compared from various companies. I personally would never use the Banks unless there was no other way. There was one time when we purchased some camera equipment and for some reason (they coukd not explain it) Transferwise would not send to this particular firm so we had to use the Bank and it cost us 3 times as much as it would have done with Transferwise.