What is the best way to send money overseas?

What is the Best Way to Send Money Abroad?

Speed, Support and Cost - What's the Best Way to Transfer Money?

There are many ways to send money abroad. The different exchange rates and fees can be confusing, but does it really make a difference which company you choose when transferring your money internationally?

What is the Best Way to Send Money Abroad?

Here we consider the important factors of Speed, Support and Cost to help you decide what way is best for you.

If you are sending money abroad you don't want to sit around for days on end waiting for it to be sent and received by different banks in different countries. Also, you don't want unexpected delays that can cause major headaches. You want to know when your money will arrive and be confident that it gets there on time.

Because CurrencyFair is online, we are fast. You choose which bank accounts you use to send and receive the money and then choose the timeline - everything is completely transparent.

If you want to see how fast an international money transfer will be for your chosen countries, click here.

If you are looking for the best way to send money internationally, you should never underestimate the importance of having someone readily available to talk to or email should you have any concerns.

If you want to see great customer service, you should browse around the CurrencyFair Facebook page or see what people say about us on Twitter. We’re real people who use the service ourselves. We are here to help you if you have any questions or concerns.

Below are just some examples of the sort of customer feedback we get regularly.

We’ll let the neutral Australian consumer watchdog organisation, Choice, tell us:

"There’s no way to know how much might go missing in the course of an international money transfer. Unexpected fees and a laughably bad exchange rate could cost you hundreds of dollars along the way – especially if banks are involved."

Let’s take a look at a real life example of a money exchange gone wrong.

The UK newspaper, The Guardian, recently covered a situation faced by one of their own journalists.

It was something that could happen to any of us – she left her laptop computer at the airport. When the journalist returned home to the UK, she arranged for a courier company back in Australia to collect the laptop from the airport (Sydney) and send it to the UK.

The courier fee was $232.

This is where things took a turn for the worse. The courier company required up-front payment so the journalist used her UK bank to send the $232 to the company down under.

“I was informed that Santander would charge £25 for this transaction, and there may be charges from a "middle bank" handling international payments.
Five days later I received an email from the Australian company to say it could not send my laptop as it had only received $212. Santander had omitted to tell me that any charges levied by the middle bank would be taken from the amount I owed the delivery company.”

This sort of trickery has gotten so big across the globe that the World Bank has even set up a working party to bring about reform to unfair exchange rates and fees when sending money abroad.

Even the International consumer watchdog, Consumers International finds it a bit tricky:

“The current industry standard allows for opaque pricing, which obscures unfavourable currency conversion rates, hides the real cost to the consumer and makes it almost impossible for the consumer to ‘comparison-shop’.”

Or for independent advice, visit the TimeDoctor blog who have compared all the best money transfer providers if you need to send money overseas to a specific country.

So, What Is The Best Way To Send Money Overseas?

As Consumers International quite rightly point out:

“Transferring remittances is a relatively straightforward transaction, for which it is often hard to justify a 5% charge, and there are an increasing number of examples that suggest the service can be provided for much less.”

We agree.

We invite you to examine our currency exchange calculator and see which is the best way to transfer money overseas.