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Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

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Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#231

Post by drited »

Youden wrote: post #157

FWIW, where possible, I advise having both a TransferWise account and a Revolut or Interactive Brokers account. TransferWise is fantastic for receiving money. They have local bank accounts in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD and PLN. However for sending money and converting money, their fees can really suck: for $10k USD -> EUR (EURUSD is one of the most liquid forex pairs), they charge 81 USD in fees, or %0.8. Even for local…

Am I correct in thinking that interactive brokers won't send from your brokerage account to someone else? If so I guess the process would be to send back to a Revolut account of yours in the target currency after conversion at IB and then send it to the recipient from Revolut /Transfer wise using a same currency transfer?

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#232

Post by rchowe »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #226
rchowe wrote: post #221

What is the secret sauce to TransferWise? Are banks greedy, or do they have access to an exchange market that nobody else does? I've avoided them because whenever I look up wire transfer fees I get their SEO'd blog posts, but it seems from this thread that they have a legitimately good product. I use a local bank account for incoming wires so that, if there is a problem, I can go down to the bank and talk to someone…

The secret sauce is that TW doesn't actually do currency exchange. They have their own pools of different currencies, and receive/disburse into/from those pools rather than selling/buying. So if you send $100 to someone who will receive EU, TW doesn't actually change $100 into EU; they credit your $100 to their dollar pool, and pay the recipient from their EU pool. As long as the pool sizes remain well matched with t…

That's really interesting!

They only support disbursements in six currencies (AUD, EUR, GBP, NZD, PLN, and USD), but they can accept eighteen currencies; presumably because they already have a large balance of those and they are relatively stable -- the one question mark for me would be PLN, but I would guess that it might be an important remote work market.

It seems the main difference is the lack of a requirement for an intermediate bank or banks; even a large international bank like HSBC might have to go through a third party for currency conversion in certain circumstances. It seems a lot easier if you are only making increases / decreases to your own balance sheet (cut out the middle man, no settlement requirements, etc).

Presumably you issue bonds to get the to do this with, which is relatively safe because it stays as cash and you know your churn rate. Does TransferWise have any levers they can pull besides halting disbursements in a given currency if there is a sudden devaluation, e.g. Poland goes bankrupt and PLN goes to zero?

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#233

Post by tradertef »

Ayesh wrote: post #62
sambarina wrote: post #53

I am surprised that there is no mention of Bitcoin. My current project is also in another country (US) and I live in Europe. I am getting paid in BTC, and I pay even less then via Transferwise. It is cheaper because the company already owns Bitcoin, so it doesn't need to buy them. What I do is: - Getting BTC transferred to a wallet at an exchange I trust - Sell the BTC ones I receive them and put the money on my bank…

I'm genuinely looking forward to a day that we can do this. Digitally transfer money between each other. Right now, you are probably losing more money that Ttansferwise because it costs a considerable amount of money to convert them to Fiat currency.

Agree. Also, you loose money when you buy it. P2P transfer is extremely cheap, but on-ramp and off-ramp are horrible. That's why there are so many exchanges making money in Bitcoin business.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#235

Post by nilanp »

toptal wrote: post #73

We at Toptal initially created TopTracker payments (we don't monetize on this product at all) to be the lowest form of payments for freelancers globally by partnering with Payoneer. Essentially, it's a fixed 2% transfer cost including FX, however TransferWise is often able to beat that. We, and I'm sure other companies, would love to partner with TransferWise, however they've yet to create API's that allows for a pro…

Hi - we certainly do have an API at transferwise. I'm in the product team. Drop me a line at n at transferwise dot com.

Nilan

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#236

Post by nilanp »

sealthedeal wrote: post #192

I am the CEO of Routefusion (routefusion.co). While we don't handle individual international freelancer payments, we have the most comprehensive API for companies to send cross-border/international payments to contractors, or SMBs, etc. Based on my experience, here are some recommendations for whom I would use in no particular order. Deel (letsdeel.com): They are an amazing option for paying and hiring freelancers/re…

Hey - if you are interested in using the TransferWise API to power your payments drop me a line: n at tranferwise dot com

Nilan

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#237

Post by Havoc »

saym wrote: post #230
Havoc wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They process your orders directly against the forex market Sorta. Orders below 25k are odd lots https://ibkb.interactivebrokers.com/node/1459

From that page, it looks like odd lots are still transacted damn near the same rate. '1 to 2 basis points' off would be .01-.02% extra

Only true if there is sufficient liquidity. Outside of main market hours I've seen pretty thin liquidity in odd lots and thus wide spread (GBP/AUD).

I agree IB is still a pretty good way to go overall though

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#238

Post by nilanp »

nedsma wrote: post #30

Using the opportunity to pressure TW to expand into more markets. Why only focus on the EEA countries? Come on, expand onto whole Europe/world, if Payoneer/Skrill can do it, you can too. Edit: make debit cards available anywhere.

Coverage is pretty comprehensive https://transferwise.com/ available in 59 countries (see half way down the home page)

The borderless bank account seems available in a ton of countires too - https://transferwise.com/gb/borderless/

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#239

Post by Ayesh »

unnouinceput wrote: post #107
Ayesh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the 20% definitely raises eyebrows. Uber charges 20% I no longer use Upwork, and the "loss" is only one of the reasons. But it's probably the best way to find projects easily though.

Try going for long-term projects or creating relationship with your customers. Once you charge them more then 10k USD the rate is ~6%, which is quite nice to have 94 cents on a dollar. It's something Upwork actually encourages, opposite for Fiverr as example

If you reach 10K in payments, it means there's a good level of trust between two parties, at which point even the 5% charge is not necessary.

Their messaging and time tracking tools are mediocre at best, and they certainly aren't worth the 5% charge. Payments are held for a week, and it still costs money for the worker to withdraw them. Their local currency withdraw is 2-3% lower than Transferwise.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#240

Post by tim333 »

drited wrote: post #231
Youden wrote: post #157

FWIW, where possible, I advise having both a TransferWise account and a Revolut or Interactive Brokers account. TransferWise is fantastic for receiving money. They have local bank accounts in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD and PLN. However for sending money and converting money, their fees can really suck: for $10k USD -> EUR (EURUSD is one of the most liquid forex pairs), they charge 81 USD in fees, or %0.8. Even for local…

Am I correct in thinking that interactive brokers won't send from your brokerage account to someone else? If so I guess the process would be to send back to a Revolut account of yours in the target currency after conversion at IB and then send it to the recipient from Revolut /Transfer wise using a same currency transfer?

Yup.
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