Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer • Hacker News Board

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#151

Post by vortico » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

vsipuli wrote: post #143

vortico wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Because our contractors provide us a 1-6 month, non-full-time, packaged, isolated service by an agreed deadline for a lump sum, they're very far from the definition of an employee in all countries, so it's not a problem with us. However, if your company starts directing tasks, or otherwise starts creeping toward the fine line, then what happens is out of my expertise, sorry. My useless advice is to stay far from the line, but of course some businesses might not be able to easily do this.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#152

Post by deepGem » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

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 that Transferwise is the best option out there for cross border commerce. Also stay away from Payoneer if you can. They eat 1-3% of the gross money transferred as commission, depending on the target currency. Also Payoneer's exchange rates aren't the best in the market. This is ridiculous when compared to TW.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#153

Post by Youden » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #106

rvnx wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reality, internalised or not, TransferWise makes lot of money in fees. On InteractiveBrokers for example, you pay +/- 2.33 USD in total to convert 100'000 USD to EUR (+ 1 USD extra for withdrawal if you already did one this month). TransferWise charges end-user 900 USD + spread for the same operation, which is rather comical when you see their ads "banks are scamming you"

> On InteractiveBrokers for example That is not a consumer-friendly site. Is it even practical for the typical case TransferWise targets: sending a few payments a year, or a few a month? The pricing page for foreign exchange has the cheapest category as under $1 billion -- is transferring $200 something they'd do? I don't know what a "basis point" is, or "trade value". https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?…

Interactive Brokers is by no means a replacement for TransferWise. It doesn't even permit you to send money to an account that isn't in your name.

That said, its currency conversion is the real deal. If you have an account with them (I do), you can convert as little or as much as you like and withdraw it to your own account elsewhere.

I wouldn't recommend opening an account there just for currency conversion but their brokerage offering is fantastic so I'd consider currency conversion a nice benefit that comes with that.

If you want a more direct comparison, Revolut does conversion for free if your amount is under 6k/month.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#154

Post by ska » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:47 PM UTC

sometimes you will do better with a wire and access to your banks trading desk (not retail exchange. Assumes you can hold an account in senders currency , but worth checking.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#155

Post by sho » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

eternauta3k wrote: post #46

sho wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ~$30 with the actual exchange rate, compared to about ~$14 for Transferwise I have never seen this (TW user here too!) and I transfer money pretty often. Are you sure the exchange rate was the same? Because that's how they get you - a fairly minimal charge (your $30, or often "free") but then pad out the exchange rate in their favour, sometimes up to 5%(!) Or maybe you just have a really excellent bank. None of min…

> I've used TW to move between currencies in the same bank account How do you do this? Last I tried, TW didn't let me choose currencies (it used the default currency for the source/destination country)

It was SGD to USD and you're able to use SWIFT to any country for USD (so I just pointed it at the same Singapore bank). It was slightly more expensive but still less than DBS was going to charge.

It would definitely be nice if they opened that up a bit, plenty of countries these days can do multi-currencies.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#156

Post by sysashi » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

I came to the same conclusion (I use Upwork -> TW -> My local bank, instead of Upwork -> local bank, because even with lower transfer amounts upwork's rate is so bad)

Although I've noticed an increase in fees over the year or so with TW, especially now. Next time I'm withdrawing from upwork I'm gonna compare rate/fees and check whether TW gives me better outcome. (I feel it might be not true anymore)

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#157

Post by Youden » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

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 transfers (which should be free) they charge ~1 USD.

Revolut is kinda crap for receiving money (the only local accounts are EUR and GBP, the rest are GB IBANs) but sending and conversion are both free (conversion as long as the amount is Interactive Brokers is literally useless for sending and receiving money (they only accept transactions to/from your own accounts) but they're fantastic for conversion. They process your orders directly against the forex market and charge ~1USD per trade for the kinds of trades we're talking about. The downside is that their minimum account balance is pretty high (~$6k IIRC) and they have a $10/month "inactivity" fee if your balance is below $100k and you generate And finally, Charles Schwab is great in the US. They charge minimal markup on deposits and withdrawals in foreign currencies (~0.5-1% depending on amount) and they have a debit visa card with no international transaction fees and Visa's exchange rate (~0.3% spread). They're not the best around but they're really great if you don't want to put your money in the hands of a less-regulated FinTech company that has minimal deposit guarantees.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#158

Post by why-el » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

jaeming wrote: post #96

I just used TransferWise for the first time last night. I was legitimately impressed with their well-designed UI/UX. My bank doesn't even have an online interface for international wire transfers, plus, their UI looks like something developed in coldfusion by an ex-myspace engineer.

TransferWise customer for over 5 years now, they are the best in the market.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#159

Post by leifg » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

cik wrote: post #70

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…

This has always been more of the dream of BTC than the reality. Transferring BTC around can cost 0.1 - 0.4% which becomes quite expensive. The cost of a wire transfer from Canada to the various countries I make them is a flat $36 - though receiving fees can be as high as $15 (CAD). That means that BTC only makes sense if you're transferring less than $5100. But moreover, BTC back to fiat is significantly more expensi…

Another factor with BTC is. If you receive the money in BTC and the exchange course happens to be relatively stable. Depending on your country, you will have a hard time converting this into your currency.

At a certain amount exchanges will ask a lot of questions (at least in Europe they do). And they want to see proof for the whole chain back, so you better hope your client can provide these infos as well.

And even if everything is 100% legit, you will wait a while for your money.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#160

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

xii22 wrote: post #102

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…

Personally I use Bitcoin to transfer money to my home country monthly. It's not much, around 1000-1500 euro (hopefully for just one more month), and it's to pay my credit card debt back home. It's very convenient, fast, and I get the best market price for my euros. Using Transferwise is out of the question since my homeland uses an artificial price for the dollar, and thus if I were to use them I'd lose on about 25%…

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