Whether you run an international company or frequently order goods from overseas stores, you need to make international payments or exchange currencies.
Thanks to the world wide web and developments in modern finances, it has become so easy to conduct business internationally. All you need is a smartphone and internet access. You don’t have to be a huge enterprise and hire people from all over the world or order services from overseas companies. You can easily issue an international money transfer with just a few taps on the screen.
Bank Fees for International Money Wire
A quick look at the average bank charges for overseas payments shows how expensive it is to send money abroad. In most cases, you need to pay around $15 to move your money to another country. The transfer costs more if you need to send bigger amounts or if your recipient lives in a more remote country.
So if banks, which usually take care of all of our everyday finances, are too expensive in that matter, how can you send money globally cheaper?
Here are some ideas…
Use Online Remittance Platforms
Online remittance platforms have become extremely popular to send money online. It is convenient, fast, secure and most importantly cheaper.
You don’t have to stand in long lines with cash in your pockets to order payment. When shopping online you must have come across PayPal, which is probably one of the biggest payment processors on the market. While, it is very popular, there are thousands of similar and cheaper, but equally secure alternatives.
There are also platforms that specialize only in particular services. For example, some offer good business accounts and tools for handling your invoices. Others are designed for frequent travelers and people who make a lot of international payments and need to exchange currencies on a regular basis.
The costs differ from platform to platform, however, you can easily find services, which will allow you to send a transaction of $100 for just a few cents.
Check Exchange Rates
Many companies offer so-called “free” transfers. And you shouldn’t be surprised that they are not actually free. Even though you are not paying any transaction fees, you are charged a “hidden fee” when your money is being exchanged.
The currency conversion rates differ significantly from the market ones and the remittance company is putting its markup on them. That way, when one dollar is equal to 0.9 euro, your recipient will receive for example only 0.6EUR, because of the biased rates.
Try Out Different Currency Pairs
However weird it may sound, it may be cheaper to convert your currency, just to send and exchange it to yet another currency. It’s all because of different costs and available support in processing different currency pairs and sending them to particular locations.
For example, some European-based platforms can send EUR much cheaper than USD transactions.
Other platforms specialize in particular routes and countries. For example, there is a whole separate market for sending money cheaply to India and exchanging it to Indian Rupees.
In another case, there is a company that noticed that there are a lot of Polish work migrants in the UK, so they have established a cheap money transfer market just to send and exchange money between these two countries. That way people who came to the UK to earn money can send it back to families in their home country much cheaper.
You can easily benefit from such routes and find cheap transfer opportunities.
Choose Features that you Prefer
Are you in a hurry and your recipient needs to have the money right now?
Many sites offer instant transfers for extra fees. If you can wait a few days, why don’t you choose a slow but cheap transfer on a different site? It’s essential to understand what is important for you when handling these transactions. That way you can cut expenses on features that you don’t need.
Compare Different Services
So you want to send money abroad cheaper, you know that there are a lot of online platforms that can take care of your transfer, but there are simply too many of them. It’s hard to choose this one service in such a dynamic market.
It may be sensible to use some help from comparing tools and rating sites. For example, Wirly gathers information on transfer costs, exchange rates, transaction speed, safety and other features of these companies and lets you sort them based on what’s important for you. You can also type in how much money you need to send abroad and you will instantly see the costs of the same transfer on different remittance platforms.
Remember to read some reviews before making your first transaction. That way you can learn what are the most frequent problems and drawbacks international payments platform that you’ve decided to use.