Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#11

Post by hellodevnull » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

Back when it was beginning to get difficult to buy Bitcoin in the UK (when MtGox and Intersango stopped accepting bank transfers) I used TransferWise, a p2p currency exchange, to send money to European bank accounts as an alternative. For example, BitStamp was based in Slovenia, so I'd send money directly to their European account. Without a service like TransferWise I would have to spend £25 with every Bitcoin purchase (that's how much my bank charges for an EU transfer), versus £1 with TW.

Unfortunately now you can't even deposit into European bank accounts that are related to Bitcoin... but anyway it's a really cheap way of sending money, not all currencies are available yet though (no CAD) but keep an eye out.

https://transferwise.com/

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#12

Post by JoshTriplett » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 2:55 PM UTC

The simplest solution would be to find a Canadian bank that will accept check deposits denominated in USD. Second easiest would be to have banks in both countries, deposit into the US bank, transfer, and withdraw from the Canadian bank. In both cases, ideally you could set up direct deposit.

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#13

Post by yrral » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 2:57 PM UTC

I've heard co-workers using interactivebrokers to do so. I found a blog post about it here http://blog.plsoucy.com/2012/11/best-way-to-convert-usd-to-c...

The fees are essentially max($2.50, 0.01%) but there's some restrictions (min $10k deposit, $10 monthly fee)

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#14

Post by amouat » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 2:58 PM UTC

mmesh wrote: post #6

I've used TransferWise ( https://transferwise.com ) several times to move money from SEK to USD, but it seems they don't support CAD yet. Super easy to get started, and very low fees.

I used TransferWise to move GBP to EUR. It worked well and was cheaper than the bank, but note that they take slightly more than they need for the transfer to hedge against currency fluctuations, then pay back the extra later. This was annoying as the bank charges me if I go over a certain number of transactions per month.

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#15

Post by brentm » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 2:58 PM UTC

I use FX Payments from American Express (https://fxpayments.americanexpress.com). It's "only" $35 per wire. It's a bit of a process to set up but works well once up and running.

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#16

Post by mlakewood » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 2:59 PM UTC

I've found citibank, apart from thier not great website, have a pretty good deal. I have a US account and an Oz account and transferring between then is instantaneous. The obviously take a cut on the exchange rate, but its been pretty good IMHO.

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#17

Post by myhf » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

I used to use CurrencyFair, and loved the easy, fast, transparent process (with a view of how much money is available to buy/sell at each price point). But they closed to US residents.

Now I have to use XE Trade, and never really know how long a transfer will take or what exchange rate it will settle on.

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#18

Post by footpath » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

How are you currently depositing the US cheques? Both TD[1] and RBC[2] offer cross-border banking accounts, meaning that you can open a TD/RBC account in Canada and a TD/RBC account in the US and link them together, which should allow you to transfer funds between them at an optimum rate. You should be able to deposit US cheques with their smartphone apps. The issue with this approach is that you will have to maintain two bank accounts that you may have to pay monthly fees separately or maintain a minimum balance.

There should also be some banks in Canada (including TD and RBC) that offer US Dollar accounts, such as this one from Scotia[3] that seems to offer direct deposit, so maybe look those up as well.

Otherwise, foreign exchange sites like XE or Xoom may be an option as others have mentioned here, but I'm not too familiar with them.

[1]http://www.tdbank.com/personal/cross-border-banking.html [2]http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/cross-border-banking/index.html [3]http://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/0,,59,00.html

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#19

Post by abhididdigi » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

I am surprised nobody here use XOOM (https://www.xoom.com)

Re: Ask HN: How do you transfer money internationally?

#20

Post by refurb » Tue, Aug 05, 2014, 3:01 PM UTC

You live in Canada and get paid in USD? Just deposit the check in your bank. It take a while to clear (up to 30 days), but the big Canadian banks give pretty good exchange rates since they exchange a lot of USD -> CAD.