How does a friend in Europe wire money from her EU bank to my US bank account?
 

How does a friend in Europe wire money from her EU bank to my US bank account?

What information will her EU bank branch need to initiate the wire transfer?

The amount in question is appx US$900.

Thanks!

Lots of people have been using

https://azimo.com/en/?home

There is a report here

http://www.headforpoints.com/2014/03...rs-with-azimo/

Otherwise she can transfer through her bank. They will ask for Bank name, address, sort and account codes or ask your bank for the Iban code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...Account_Number

When I transfer I always do so in my local currency and have it converted at the receiving bank as the exchange is typically better.

Some of the early Skype employees have created transferwise.com which is a pretty unique approach to international transfers. It kind of follows the Skype model, except of course it isn't free. Has anyone tried this? I might give it a try.

I have had to transfer money back and forth and I found transferwise to be a lot cheaper than doing bank transfers.

(I won't post my referral link because it's against FT TOS, but if you end up using it, send me a PM.)

But is it really cheaper? From what I can tell it depends on how much you transfer. What is the point where it isn't cheaper? $1000?

I use WorldRemit to transfer funds from my UK account to my South African one and it's a flat fee if I recall correctly.

Costs about 80% less than my bank charges.

The fee varies depending on currency. For EUR to USD transfers, it is 0.5% over the mid-market rate.

Transferwise will almost certainly be cheaper than a wire transfer at all banks for all amounts. However, there may be additional fees above GBP 24000 equivalent. If you did a wire transfer, you would be charged these same fees as well as other bank fees.

Wire transfers are very likely to use a rate with at least 1% spread, and there is no way to avoid this spread if you are transferring money between different people.

(If I personally needed to send EUR to USD between my own bank accounts at the absolute best possible rate, I would get the money into my eurozone HSBC account, use HSBC Global Transfer to send it to my Hong Kong HSBC, withdraw EUR cash in HKG and exchange it at a place which uses a 0.25% spread, deposit the USD cash and then send it to my US HSBC account. This is generally a waste of time even if I am already in HKG, so I would just send it to HK and exchange it electronically at one of my banks which uses a 0.5% spread.)

So .5% over the mid-market rate equals nearly 1% it seems. According to the Transferwise website, if I send US$10,000 to Europe, the fee is $84.41. I'm quite sure that my bank doesn't charge anywhere near that much. You have to look at the exchange rate of course, but I'm not sure that Transferwise is wise for 4 or 5 figure transfers. Or am I missing something?

Generally speaking, most European consumer banks will charge both a spread and a fee for international payments, so should be avoided like the plague. A handful are more reasonable, Citibank at the Gold level isn't too bad IIRC for one example

For small sums of money, you generally want someone with no fees, as even a bad spread will beat a fixed fee. For larger sums, a $5-$10 payment/withdrawl/etc fee isn't too much of a worry, as long as the spread is low.

For this sort of amount, on a one-off, I think your best bet right now is Currency Fair. Sign up with this link and you'll get one free transfer (and so will I for referring you, for full disclosure). Have your friend send currencyfair the euros as a SEPA transfer, which should be free. Exchange on their marketplace for a 0.35% spread, and with a bit of patience you can even beat the mid-market rates. Then use the free transfer from the signup to have the USD deposited as a US-domestic transfer into your account

I used this to pay for some football tickets when they'd only accept bank transfers, as the fees i'd have to pay through my own bank (GBP>EUR) were exorbitant. Probably ends up being closer for larger transfers such as those the OP wants, but didn't have any issues with the transaction itself.

Banks will always be easier and you simply need your IBAN number for all international transfers.

U.S. banks don't use IBAN so while a bank transfer is of course possible, you will need more information.

As far as I know, US banks don't use the IBAN number (yet?).

Bit dated thread. But for larger amounts
www.ofx.com (formerly ozforex) is also very good.

Transferwise probably wins on amounts below US$2k
Ozforex is very good one you get above their free threshould - around US$5k