Beat the Banks: Get Beneficial Exchange Rates with Wise

 

Have you ever tried sending or receiving money online from a different country? If you haven’t done so, it might seem a bit intimidating on your first try. You might not know where to start, what to do next and what things you should do to successfully make and receive a transfer. Whether it’s for your friend, your brother studying abroad, or payment for a product you’ve purchased, it might make you feel nervous to wire money online. Added to it also are the transaction charges you should be aware of whenever you’re sending money of a different currency to the recipient of a different country. Is the amount you have enough? Or will you be covering a transaction fee from your end? You also have to know what are the requirements needed to make a successful transaction. Join me as I discuss it in this article.

Online money transfers started in the late 1990s. This allowed people to send and receive money through the help of banks. But today it was more improved because people wouldn’t have to fall in line with the bank offices to make a transaction. Transferring and receiving money can be done easily even with the use of your mobile device. Let me introduce to you one of the best online transfer platforms that are widely used today – Wise. If you’re fond of wiring money overseas, stay tuned.

What is Wise?

If you are looking for the most efficient way to send money internationally, you might want to try Wise (formerly Transferwise). Wise money transfer is one of the best money transfer providers that offers online currency conversion and transfer service for the international transfer of money anywhere around the globe. It was started in 2010 in London, United Kingdom and was then established as Transferwise. Financial gurus Taveet and Käärman called it Transferwise because they believe their customers are wise enough to prefer an online transfer to banks. After all, most bank transactions have hidden charges.

Wise allows you to wire transfer and receive money internationally through your borderless account. This is ideal for international students, freelancers, and sellers on marketplaces or credit cardholders who want to improve their cash flow and seamlessly wire money overseas. Say, you wanted to send an allowance to your child studying in another country, or to your family living abroad, you can easily wire the money even through your mobile device with the use of the Wise application. This works best for employers like me too who own a digital marketing company, or for people who own international online education companies, and other international remote working organizations who have teammates from other parts of the globe.

Did you know that you can Payoneer gives a low transaction rate? Find out how here.

Sending money through Wise has never been hard. You just have to make a wire transfer to Wise and you can then transparently exchange currencies. Exchange rates are always available on their website so you won’t have to worry about checking it out. I find this helpful because it’s a good guide to see how much your money will cost after its conversion. Wise is also working with a mid-market exchange that helps you cut costs when sending money overseas. Today, Wise serves more than 15 million people and businesses to move, hold and convert money around the world through their international accounts with Wise and continues to grow.

Reasons to Use Wise

I must say, Wise has more reasons to be an excellent platform for online money transfer. Compared to other service providers, aside from its transparency and cheap transaction fees, it also offers a faster and secure transaction process. Making you feel at ease in sending money abroad. Let us check the reasons why you should use Wise.

Easy to Use 

Wise has a user-friendly interface that can be easily understood by someone who wishes to use a money transfer service. In just a few minutes you can successfully process a local or international money transfer. You just have to register your account to make a transaction. Once you are signed up, you have to add your bank account details and the bank details where you wish to transfer your funds plus, the details of the account you wish to withdraw your funds from. After you’ve done your first service, your next transfer will be a lot easier. You can also save the details you’ve enrolled so you wouldn’t have to add them again on your next transaction.

You can do your transactions anywhere and anytime you want through the Wise application. Just download it on your mobile device and you can start sending money anywhere around the globe.

Cheap Fees

The good thing about Wise is they focus on executing bank transfers more affordable than traditional bank transactions by charging lower fees. In comparison to interbank rates, Wise has zero markups and provides real exchange rate than banks who are known to often have an above-market interest rate for customers, which is actually part of their fees. In general, many banks charges hidden fees such as exchange rate markups and conversion fees and not transparent. In fact, Wise often provides transfer fees 8x cheaper to move money.

Wise supports 750 currencies at the lowest possible price. They have their pricing calculator which you can use to check how much it will cost for you to wire transfer the amount of money you have. Below is the sample breakdown of how your transaction fee is calculated.

Fast Transfer Process

Indeed, one of the reasons you should look out for choosing an online money transfer tool is its efficiency and speed of the transfer process. And fortunately, Wise can give you that. Just like how fast you can easily sign up and set up your account, transferring and receiving money from other countries can work the same too. Wise always move your money as quickly as possible and it all depends on you to set up your transfer. The more information you provide about your transfer, the more accurately you will know how long it will take to transfer the money. First, it will depend on the country you’re sending from and to. Every country has different currencies and the recipient will receive their funds in a maximum of 2 business days can happen depending also on how fast your recipient’s bank can process your money, though 2 business days is uncommon but still a lot faster than banks and other money transfer services.. Second, it will also depend on how you pay. Card payments are commonly instant compared to bank transfers.

Usually, it can take 1 working day to receive a wire transfer and 1–3 working days to receive an ACH transfer. It typically takes 4-5 working days to receive the money transferred outside the US, but it can take longer due to time differences.

Receiving EUR, NZD, PLN, and CAD can take 1-2 working days. AUD, SGD, TRY, RON, and HUF usually take one working day to be received while GBP can usually take seconds or one working day to be received.

Not to mention, they offer the Wise debit card which is amazing for digital nomads or frequent travelers. The debit card lets you spend money in local currency abroad using the funds that is within your Wise account, you can also connect your credit card to your Wise account. Google Pay also supports the Wise card.

Multiple Currencies

Wise supports a lot of currencies around the globe and they are still expanding. Some of these currencies allow local transfer while some can do an international money transfer. Wise has a multi-currency account or the borderless account which enables you to experience multi-banking no matter where you live. You can receive and send money to 80 countries, convert money into 56 currencies such as Peso, Euro, Hong Kong Dollar, Indian Rupee, Vietnamese Dong, South African Rand, Swiss Franc, Peruvian Nuevo Sol, New Romanian Leu, Sri Lankan Rupee, New Zealand Dollar, Brazilian Real, Turkish Lira and US Dollar at competitive currency exchange rates, and also get a contactless MasterCard for free.

This borderless account comes in handy since it’s easy to link to a Wise debit Mastercard and gives you a chance to get personal account numbers and bank details in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, INR, CHF, PKR, VND, ZAR, BGN, BRL, CZK, DKK and NZD. These details are what you will use to receive direct remittances from your friends, businesses, or clients from around the world. And since Wise has a network of bank accounts globally in various countries, they are able to support the currencies in several states.

Mobile Wallets

Receiving money through Wise cards might not work for some countries like Bangladesh, India, the Philippines, and other Asian countries. However, Wise has developed its way to make the transfer of money easier even through e-wallets. For India, wiring can be done through Gojek’s GoPay, Ovo, and Dana. Gcash and Paymaya e-wallets for the Philippines and bKash for Bangladesh. Just recently, Wise has partnered with DBS PayLah!, UOB Mighty, OCBC Pay Anyone, FavePay, and other mobile wallets and e-wallets stores in Singapore for improved and fewer hassle transactions in cash transactions.

Safe and Credible

Transferring cash online can be worrying especially if you’ll be sending a large amount of money. And you might think that Wise ’s feature of transparency and low transaction fee is too good to be true. To help you decipher, Wise is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and other more regulatory bodies. This certifies that all customers who are using the service of Wise are protected by and under European rules and regulations. The company transfers dozens of billions in foreign exchange each year, servicing millions of clients. And is trusted by Brits, Europeans, Australians, and Americans every month.

I can attest that Wise pride itself on their transparent fee structure and excellent exchange rate. And beyond that, they also offer clear and professional offers making it a more trustworthy and safe money transfer company. They also have a Customer Support team that covers a variety of regions and language skills. They also have these goals of building trust with their customers and making transactions simple.

API Documentation

Wise has well-versed API documentation that helps you to learn to use the application, from payouts and account automation, to partner banks integration, and to receiving money. Through the payouts account automation, you can pay out directly to bank accounts or email recipients, monitor payments received to your Wise local bank details, and power your cross-border and domestic payout through single API integration. You can also fully automate your transfer creation and track its statuses.

Wise additionally made use of bank integration to build smooth payment transactions onto other bank applications. Through this, customers can access some of the fastest and cheapest cross-border payments available to consumers nowadays. Banks can also benefit from this through their competitive, transparent, and fair pricing to their customers at the mid-market exchange rate. They also offered an affiliate program where you can earn a commission for the promotion of their service on your page. When you apply to the Wise affiliates program you can get access to their API and help you build your own content.

Wise Account Pricing

When it comes to pricing, I can definitely recommend Wise. It has a far better offer than other money transfer tools. Wise offers free registration and use of the account. There are no subscription fees or minimum balances you have to worry about upon using it. Just take note that when you hold more than €15,000 in EUR balance you might be charged a 0.40 % fee annually. There is a small fee to convert currencies, either in your account or when you pay with your debit card in a currency other than the one listed as the primary account currency. The good thing about Wise is you can always check the price of converting currencies through their interactive calculator. 

How To Transfer Money Using Wise?

Of course, after reading all the good things about Wise you will be excited to use it for wiring money transfers to your friends, loved ones, business partners, and clients anywhere around the globe. You can use Wise through their Android or iOS apps downloadable on the Google Play or Apple App Store, or supported browsers such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari or Microsoft Edge. Below are the five steps you need to follow to successfully send out your money.

1. Create a Wise account by signing up on their website. 

2. Choose Amount to Send. 

3. Add Recipient’s Bank details such as their IBAN, SWIFT code, bank account number etc.

4. Verify your identity. If you will be sending a large amount of money you will be asked to scan or upload your ID. 

5. Pay for your transfer and your recipient gets their money within 2 working days, trackable via their app.

Final Thought

I believe you’ve seen how good Wise is as a money transfer tool. Wise (formerly Transferwise) has provided their clients the best service they need for a money transfer service through the years. Through the use of a Wise account, you can easily do an international transfer of money from one country to the other without worrying about the conversion of currency. Its cross-border transactions have made a seamless transfer possible even for people who are using e-wallets. You can send money to your friends, your personal account, to a business account, or even to a charity. There is no minimum or maximum transfer amount on a customer’s account. Payments can be made via Debit card, Apple Pay, SWIFT transfers, and ACH.

So, if you’re looking for a comprehensive and reliable wire transfer company, you must try Wise. It has a wide scope of currencies and country coverages that makes it easier for you to send out money overseas. They also have cheap transaction fees and no hidden charges so you can definitely save money and increase your cash flow in the long run. Plus, you can easily wire your money even through your mobile device. If you want to know more about their transactions and story, you can visit their official website.