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Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

blog.jurn.io

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Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#141

Post by wtmt »

briodf wrote: post #136
wtmt wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanted to provide you feedback as well as alert others reading these comments. Your site doesn’t list anything other than Transferwise for transfers from India to USA, even though options like InstaRem and others exist. Based on this, I’m not sure how comprehensive your service is to compare providers for cross border transfers. I see you have InstaRem and others for some other currency combinations (including the…

Thanks for your feedback. Monito.com strives to list as many options as possible and be the most exhaustive source of information about international money transfer fees worldwide. However, we're not always able to access all data as no worldwide regulations require banks or money transfer services to be transparent about their fees and exchange rates (yet). That being said, in the case of money transfers from India…

Thanks for the prompt response with details. If I may bother you one more time, do you have XE in your list of providers? It provides money transfers for many currency pairs (probably not as broad as Transferwise or InstaRem).

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#142

Post by mcsweena »

If anyone is interested, CurrencyFair are another excellent way to save money on international payments. Similar to Transferwise, you can send money fast from one currency to another at the current exchange rate with far less fees than a bank.

They also have a peer-to-peer element, where you can choose your own exchange rate and wait for another customer (sending money in the opposite direction) to accept that rate. If you are willing to wait a little longer to send your money, you can get excellent value using this feature.

They currently have an excellent sign up offer at the moment that you can access using my link: https://www.currencyfair.com/rafland/?channel=RMZIY1

(Disclaimer: I currently work there. I love the product and I know you will too:))

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#143

Post by vsipuli »

vortico wrote: post #89
emdowling wrote: post #6

I’m a former TransferWise employee and I cannot speak more highly of them. Yes, they aim to make money like every business, but I’ve never seen a company so focused on transparency to customers. The CEO intensely interrogates roadmaps from the customer perspective, and fairness to customers is non-negotiable. Their economy of scale enables them to offer increasingly lower fees, but I can speak first hand to the pain…

Can confirm. I need to send payments from the US to ~30 international contractors per quarter. I generate a spreadsheet of their names and payment amounts. I click on their name in TransferWise's "saved recipients" page. I copy/paste the amount from the spreadsheet into the USD box, submit the payment, and then copy/paste the payment summary page into an email to the contractor verifying that I paid them. Couldn't be…

With so many international contractors (possibly spread out over different countries and jurisdictions), how do you keep track of your possible tax consequences in both your own and their jurisdictions? How do you ensure you don't become liable to treat them as employees in your and their jurisdictions? Asking out of curiosity, because interested in hiring remote contractors across the globe but fearing possible tax complexity.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#144

Post by briodf »

wtmt wrote: post #141
briodf wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your feedback. Monito.com strives to list as many options as possible and be the most exhaustive source of information about international money transfer fees worldwide. However, we're not always able to access all data as no worldwide regulations require banks or money transfer services to be transparent about their fees and exchange rates (yet). That being said, in the case of money transfers from India…

Thanks for the prompt response with details. If I may bother you one more time, do you have XE in your list of providers? It provides money transfers for many currency pairs (probably not as broad as Transferwise or InstaRem).

Yes we do. For example, they're the only service we know offering digital money transfers from Mexico to the US: https://www.monito.com/send-money/mexico/united-states/mxn/u...

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#145

Post by nabeards »

I tried to use TW to transfer from a client’s UK bank account that was in USD, to my US bank account also in USD. I couldn’t find a way to choose this in the estimator, so I contacted tech support. They replied that this was a scenario they didn’t cover. I continue to get regular wires between the accounts, costs $25 in Interbank and my place charges an additional $10. ):

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#146

Post by solotronics »

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…

The cool thing to me about Bitcoin is the setup for someone new who is unbanked is really quick. You can have someone in Zimbabwe with nothing but a cellphone download an open source Bitcoin wallet and send them money in 10 minutes. They can take this and withdraw cash from and ATM or use Bitcoin and you don't have to go through all the friction of international payments and banking.

Since it works with pub/priv key cryptography its a push model and so you can securely send money to anyone, anywhere, anytime. No bank needed.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#147

Post by decentralised »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #133
decentralised wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not familiar with Fedwire. Surely it won't be free to move fiat via any payment network. Do you happen to have a source? PS: seems not to be available to retail customers?

The "Fedwire Funds Service" is the Federal Reserve's wire transfer payment system used to move USD. I'm actually writing an integration to it right this moment (the old fixed-width format, not the new XML one, yay). Naturally this interface is not available directly to retail customers, but if you actually send a wire transfer from your bank, this is the system you will use. Your bank will generally make this availab…

Im in the EU and we don't have Fedwire here. I can tell you that ABN AMRO charges me ~10 euros for transferring ~200 eur to the UK (with conversion to GBP).

Generally speaking I'm quite familiar with payment infra in Europe, I've worked on it for ~20 years after all.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#148

Post by vasco »

nabeards wrote: post #145

I tried to use TW to transfer from a client’s UK bank account that was in USD, to my US bank account also in USD. I couldn’t find a way to choose this in the estimator, so I contacted tech support. They replied that this was a scenario they didn’t cover. I continue to get regular wires between the accounts, costs $25 in Interbank and my place charges an additional $10. ):

Might be cheaper for you to open a EUR account somewhere with low fees and do 2x transferwise than paying $35 per transfer

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#150

Post by eternauta3k »

shoo wrote: post #4

If you have an online brokerage account, it can be possible to use that to exchange currency directly on the market, with the market exchange rate and very low fees. Obviously that isn't a one-step solution for clients paying you, but it can work very well if you have money in bank accounts in different countries, and they both integrate with your brokerage account in a low-fee way.

But how do you transfer between countries? The fees for wiring money or securities with brokers are higher than normal Bank transfers, at least where I live
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