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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

#91

Post by toptal »

jddj wrote: post #78
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…

Really? A lot (most?) of the fintechs in the UK/EU seem to use TransferWise under the covers for their foreign currency exchange, and while I haven't used the api itself yet I have skimmed the docs for it and they seem detailed enough. They (intentionally, afaict) don't provide a checkout flow, but there's still a lot there.

For doing payroll like transfers, especially with strong compliance, there's a lot of under the hood functionality required. Payoneer has spent over a decade creating this, while TransferWise still has a long ways to go.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#92

Post by [deleted] »

mft_ wrote: post #22
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…

Are you able to offer any insight (top level, non-confidential, obvs) into how TransferWise works, behind-the-scenes? i.e. how do they actually enact the exchange of the funds? Do they have a contract with one of the big investment banks? Do they work directly via Forex markets? Can they leverage their scale now to minimise actual exchange costs – for example internally matching up (say) a one customer transferring U…

[deleted]

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#93

Post by JumpCrisscross »

decentralised wrote: post #75
cik wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The costs for transactions are not fixed to a percentage of the total amount sent but on the size of the transaction and the network congestion. Moving one billion USD worth of BTC can cost as little as 0.065 BTC or ~440 USD. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne... https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/4410c8d14ff9f87ceeed1d65cb...

> Moving one billion USD worth of BTC can cost as little as 0.065 BTC or ~440 USD

Which is ridiculous, given anyone (legally) moving a billion dollars pays zero for an instantaneous Fedwire.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#94

Post by hocuspocus »

ss3000 wrote: post #82

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://creditc…

Mastercard's FX rates are pretty competitive. Visa used to be expensive, but it seems they've caught up lately.

So in practice, the main difference is that Transferwise uses an instant "mid-market" rate at the time of the transaction, and then applies its fees (which are very reasonable on common pairs). Mastercard and Visa use a daily average rate that is not computed until the day after. In the end, Transferwise can sometimes be a little better, sometimes a little worse. They should all be within 0.1%. So, to answer your question, no it's not really worth it for you.

Only Revolut regularly beats everyone else since they don't charge any fee on top of their spot rate on most common pairs, except for the weekends.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#95

Post by dzhiurgis »

eckesicle wrote: post #45
markdown wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fairness to customers is non-negotiable. Nice try, TransferWise CEO. I know someone who had their money frozen because they made the mistake of mentioning that the money being sent was for kava. You simply can't trust TransferWise to put their customers first.

So what you're saying is that their compliance and risk teams are on top of their game? Kava is illegal/regulated in Europe and the UK and therefore the money and account would obviously be frozen pending an investigation.

Kava also means coffee in one of the European languages (Lithuanian).

On top of that it is legal in a lot of pacific islands.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#96

Post by jaeming »

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.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#97

Post by traceroute66 »

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…

"fairness to customers is non-negotiable" .... yeah, unless you run a VoIP company. In which case you get told VoIP is against TransferWise AUP and you get told your business account is suspended permanently. And yes, we are talking about a reputable long-established VoIP company here, not some fly-by-night spam operation.

Similarly, the TransferWise business account is a bit of a joke. Features that should have been there on day one were not there, and are still not there. Things like multiple signatories, the sort of thing you take for granted at a real bank.

Additionally "Borderless" is marketing hype. You can only actually deposit in a small number of the available currencies. You're better off with a real bank.

Or the half-hearted implementation of M-PESA. Using Transferwise you can only pay private individuals on M-PESA. Paying businesses on M-PESA is impossible because TransferWise are not correctly integrated.

Need I go on ?

Not saying avoid TransferWise. I'm just saying caveat emptor, look beyond the marketing hype.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#98

Post by fnordsensei »

mkbkn wrote: post #23

I've very high regards for TransferWise. Fastest and cheapest. Meanwhile, Paypal is a frauster and should be mass-boycotted. So do Upwork.

Is it though? I recently compared it to Revolut (during a series of large-ish transfers), and TW turned out to be quite a bit more expensive, and no faster.

Re: Saving money on international payments as a remote freelancer

#100

Post by _0w8t »

ss3000 wrote: post #82

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://creditc…

In Norway when a bank advertises 0 transaction fees they skip roughly 1.8% that Visa charges for doing currency exchanges.
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