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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

#81

Post by ElCapitanMarkla »

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…

I’ve been working remotely between NZ and the UK for the last 7 years. I was dealing with HSBC and then Barclays Wealth in the UK but recently started using the TransferWise Borderless account after Barclays wanted £40 a month account fees...

They make everything so painlessly easy. It could take a couple of days to get cash from the UK to NZ where it can be under an hour with TransferWise. I can’t sing their praises loud enough, especially after having the deal with UK banks

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#82

Post by ss3000 »

For travel, is there any benefit to using TransferWise's debit card over a traditional debit/credit card that advertises 0 foreign transaction fees?

I remember somewhere about how the conversion rates are dictated by Visa/Mastercard on most credit/debit cards. Wondering how those rates compare to TransferWise's, and if their extra fee on top is justified.

Some examples: https://www.schwab.com/checking https://creditcards.chase.com/rewards-credit-cards/sapphire/...

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#83

Post by alibaba_x »

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…

Doesn't TopTracker payments require both freelancer and client to create a Payoneer account? Requiring clients to sign up for Payoneer is a huge barrier to adoption for your service.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#85

Post by lordnacho »

I used to trade FX in my hedge fund, where of course we got interbank rates. The spread would have 5 decimal places for something like EURUSD, so 1.12345 bid, 1.12346 offered, based on mixed prices from different brokers.

I was astonished when I tried to change some money in the retail market and instead of the 5th decimal digit being different, it would be the 2nd.

Luckily these days there's several services that will give you something near the same spread, close enough to not care to search for improvements. Revolut does something like that, as does TW. I'm sure some of the other challenger banks are doing this as well.

Another big bonus is they don't force you to change your money. This is a big deal if you have an old bank like Barclays that will see your incoming USD and change it to GBP, losing you several percent in the process. If you have Revolut or TW you can actually just keep your USD, chances are there's something you pay for in dollars.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#86

Post by ghoul2 »

Tangentially related: is there any payment gateway that allows one to accept international payments (for SAAS) paid out to transferwise accounts? I know paypal doesn't connect with TW. Is there any other gateway that does? Especially for Freelancers (not operating as a business).

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#87

Post by ad31mar »

Scoundreller wrote: post #74
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…

> Getting BTC transferred to a wallet at an exchange I trust This has never been a good idea, unless you’ve been immediately selling upon receipt.

> This has never been a good idea, unless you’ve been immediately selling upon receipt.

It evens out over time.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#88

Post by pbhjpbhj »

noelwelsh wrote: post #26
EastSmith wrote: post #21

I am receiving SWIFT payments each months in EU as a commercial entity. I am invoicing in USD, providing a bank account number, where the money I receive are automatically converted to the local currency (not EUR). Just checked the exchange rate on TransferWise and it seems it is way better than any bank exchange rate in my country (not EUR). So, what I am concerned about right now is taxes. It seems I can create an…

If you don't pay tax now it is my understanding you shouldn't pay tax after changing to Transferwise. The general rule is that tax is paid in the country where the work is carried out. If you have doubts you should ask an accountant, rather than randoms on HN.

I thought USA charged income taxes on dollar earnings paid in USA too.

That aside, suppose I work nomadically, ssh in to a computer in USA, perform actions there ... where is the work carried out? It's it necessarily the location of the employee? So USA based remote workers can geographically move to a low tax regime and save money? How about if I'm in USA working for an offshore company using a desktop and systems located in that companies premises but again I dial in to a USA based client; seems my work is offshore, at the companies premises?

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#89

Post by vortico »

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 simpler than that.

All of my contractors have previously agreed to pay all fees associated with their payment, so I always type into the USD box. TransferWise withdraws exactly that amount from my bank and in 2-3 seconds tells me the amount that will be deposited into their account.

If hypothetically a new contractor wanted 1M RUB up-front, meaning that I would be responsible for payment fees, I'd simply paste 1000000 into the RUB box, and the recipient will get that exact amount, while TransferWise will calculate and tell me the USD amount to be deducted in my bank. Also couldn't be simpler.

PayPal makes this a nightmare. In order to make a payment such that exactly $1000 USD is withdrawn from my bank, I have to basically apply Newton's algorithm (or successive guessing) to the Send Money page (with each load time being ~30 seconds), because the number you enter is post-fees but pre-exchange. They couldn't have chosen a more useless variable for me to input, since I'd only either want to enter an amount pre-everything in USD or post-everything in RUB. I don't want to enter some weird intermediate amount.

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