Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Moving money internationally

bam.kalzumeus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 230 posts

Re: Moving money internationally

#171

Post by klabb3 »

larrysalibra wrote: post #80

> “Sorry, you have citizenship from the High Risk Country list, accordingly I’m not allowed to open this account for you. This is a commercial decision of the bank and will not be reversed.” This sounds like what I heard from a lot of non-US financial companies when I used to be American and then didn't want to open accounts. Frustrating but predictable and probably intended outcome from regulator behavior.

See also

- "you have a niche web browser which breaks our js fingerprinting so screw you"

- "you had a dispute on your airbnb account and we don't have time to figure out whether you or the host are wrong so we'll just kick you both off"

If that sounds shitty, we also have:

- Another company had marked you as risky, and since we trade risk profiles with each other, we just don't want to deal with you.

Except in most cases you won't ever learn the reason, much less have a fair appeals process.

I have a feeling we have a LOT more of this than people think already, but companies aren't talking about it and it's not regulated except for a few sectors. In the future though, it'll be a lot more. With the expansion of tracking, we're gonna get a LOT more persona non grata/shadowbanning and social credit systems.

Re: Moving money internationally

#172

Post by valcron1000 »

blitzar wrote: post #129
bjornsteffanson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What services are the best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. I would prefer to chose two: cheaply and safely. I am not as worried about time. Recommendations?

> best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. A (traditional) bank does all 3 for me on a regular basis.

Which kind of bank transfer are you talking about? A few days ago I got paid through ACH transfer and the transaction took 2 business days to execute, albeit with no transaction fees. Now I'm at the mercy of the bank regarding what I can do with that money.

Compare that with using something like UST (Terra), which took only ~1 minute with a fixed fee of ~1 UST for a similar transaction. I also have total control over my money.

Re: Moving money internationally

#173

Post by lottin »

Tenoke wrote: post #167
lottin wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conveniently forgetting the fees and other transaction costs associated with purchasing the Ether and then selling it for fiat.

The fees for buying and selling it are on the order of 0.075-0.5% with most exchanges.

And the wire transfers between the bank accounts and the exchange?

Re: Moving money internationally

#175

Post by CyanBird »

vineyardmike wrote: post #94
Aperocky wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yuan is highly stable over the past 2 decades, in fact it gained about 20% on the dollar over that time frame. The problem with Yuan are more with its low convertibility (read: usage rate outside China), but that may change eventually. Using currency sanctions to achieve political goals are simultaneously expending trust in those currencies.

> highly stable over the past 2 decades, in fact it gained about 20% Stable or gaining 20%? Also its not stable, nor trustworthy. You can't trust china to not manipulate it.

> You can't trust china to not manipulate it.

Rather you 'can* trust China to manipulate it when needed, they need the currency to serve specific macroeconomic policy decisions and they will use the levers on their power to achieve it, the fact that western speculators might get burned for it is not a core government interest at this time, maybe in the future

Re: Moving money internationally

#176

Post by samjmck »

valcron1000 wrote: post #172
blitzar wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. A (traditional) bank does all 3 for me on a regular basis.

Which kind of bank transfer are you talking about? A few days ago I got paid through ACH transfer and the transaction took 2 business days to execute, albeit with no transaction fees. Now I'm at the mercy of the bank regarding what I can do with that money. Compare that with using something like UST (Terra), which took only ~1 minute with a fixed fee of ~1 UST for a similar transaction. I also have total control over…

SEPA (instant) transfers between European banks are, as the name suggests, instant. There are also no transaction fees for the users of these transfers. e.g. all major Belgian banks support SEPA instant, so transfers between KBC BNP Paribas ING etc. are instant.

> Now I'm at the mercy of the bank regarding what I can do with that money.

This is going off-topic, but you are with crypto as well. Unless every merchant you use supports your cryptocurrency, you're going to have to convert it back to fiat.

Re: Moving money internationally

#177

Post by listenallyall »

netheril96 wrote: post #139
listenallyall wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moving their property across borders This seems rather naïve. If you can't leave a country because your government requires you to fight a war rather than leave, how do you get yourself, or any physical property, out? If you're in jail, justified or not, how does crypto help you move your property? Or the government you live under simply doesn't allow exiting? What if all international airports refuse to allow flig…

There are plenty of cases where you can leave a country, but not with large amount of cash or gold. Like nowadays in Russia. Crypto allows you leave with your property in these cases.

You just wrote the same thing SamReid did. Yes, of course, in some cases, crypto can help. There is a very wide gap between that, and the parent poster's declaration "crypto fixes that" like it is a failsafe cure-all.

Re: Moving money internationally

#178

Post by amalter »

rootusrootus wrote: post #31
mediocregopher wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, I'm born-and-raised in the USofA and I couldn't tell you the difference, I think that person was just an asshole. (Though I suppose I also have learned most things from tv shows and the internet.)

I agree with them just being an asshole. A lawyer is someone with a JD. An attorney is someone licensed to practice law. For a lay person, I don't think it's at all inappropriate to conflate the two, and giving them crap about it is definitely an asshole move.

Fwiw, as married to someone awaiting character and fitness confirmation from 2nd department of New York State - you cannot declare or imply that you are a lawyer, attorney or otherwise able to practice law until duly licensed and sworn in. While Websters says a lawyer includes those that study law, putting that in your email footer is a great way to never be barred.

Thus the definitions are in usage synonyms.

To the GP comment, 100% someone being an asshole.

Re: Moving money internationally

#179

Post by listenallyall »

glerk wrote: post #143
listenallyall wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moving their property across borders This seems rather naïve. If you can't leave a country because your government requires you to fight a war rather than leave, how do you get yourself, or any physical property, out? If you're in jail, justified or not, how does crypto help you move your property? Or the government you live under simply doesn't allow exiting? What if all international airports refuse to allow flig…

I was presupposing you can get yourself out. If you can't physically leave the country, owning crypto will not help you much, except perhaps to bribe some corrupt official who could smuggle you out. Similarly, if the electric grid goes down, if there is a nuclear war, or if a gamma ray burst causes a mass extinction, we will have other things to worry about. Crypto is not a magic bullet for all the scenarios you can…

Like most things crypto, the initial promise is that is fixes everything (like you initially wrote), but when you dig into it, the reality is that it's often not cheap, often not quick, often not portable, often not anonymous, often not safe, often not unrestricted from confiscation. And it introduces all kinds of concerns as well: losing keys, fraud, insecure wallets, exchanges that lose your funds, ransomware, etc

Crypto has utility, yes. But it is far from a panacea and actually does not "fix" many of the problems its supporters claim it does.

Re: Moving money internationally

#180

Post by bjornsteffanson »

blitzar wrote: post #129
bjornsteffanson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What services are the best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. I would prefer to chose two: cheaply and safely. I am not as worried about time. Recommendations?

> best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. A (traditional) bank does all 3 for me on a regular basis.

Internationally, between currencies? The best offer I've found for transferring $200,000 USD to AUD is 0.4% ($800). At scale, that's not exactly cheap. I'm referencing the original parent comment which suggests it's possible for fractions of a penny, as I would love to find this service:

> There are a ton of alternatives that cost fractions of a penny in transaction fees.

Post reply on HN