The banks are out to get us. I’m seeking ways to fight back. International money transfers are one of the banks little secrets. TransferWise says they can save us. So I tried them. Here is a TransferWise review.
Planet Money did a great piece on the invisible financial pipes that move money. This was part of their “t-shirt project.” In it, they talk about the Automated Clearing House (ACH) and what it took to move money from their Kickstarter (e.g. Amazon) to their Chase Bank account. Note: Listen to that podcast. It’s excellent.
In Australia, the banks just offer free money transfers. That’s right. It’s free in Australia with bank apps on your phone. Apps like Cash and Venmo are making it easier in America. Transferwise is the only place doing it internationally right now that I know of.
We’re moving money to Australia this month. We’re going to be testing TransferWise.com to see if we can save ourselves some fees.
TLDR – It’s great. Click here to transfer your first bit of $ for free.
A Transferwise Review
A long time ago in a….
TransferWise came across my desk a long time ago in a paid advertisement on Facebook. I clicked through, but didn’t need to move money at the time. After bookmarking the page, I was excited for the opportunity when I would need to move a good amount of money internationally.
November 20th, 2015
Today was that day I found a need to move money from the USA to Australia.
The Transferwise steps were easy to follow. They have a pretty good UI on the surface, but it wasn’t perfect…
I noticed some strange glitches in their software. At one point, it seemed as if I saw someone else’s screen before it flashed back to my screen. Very strange and disconcerting when you’re moving large amounts of money. This happened a few times. It’s a glitchy user experience.
My International Money Transfer Situation
By the way, I’m moving about $4,300 USD from a CapitalOne account to a Commonwealth Bank account. To clarify, thats a United States savings account to an Australian checking account.
I was able to generate a code on the CapitalOne online banking login and use that code to authorize the transfer with the TransferWise.
To my dismay, I learned that the transfer will take 1-5 business days from CapitalOne to TransferWise. Also, my Australian bank will also require 2-3 business days for the money to clear in that account. So 3-8 days in total to move some digits across a line.
Ahhh the wonders of the modern financial system.
Anyways, I clicked transfer and the deal is in action.
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As I go back to the site to check the status of the transfer, they have this cryptic page that doesn’t tell me information about fees. I’m unsure of the fee schedule. I can ascertain the conversion rate because they tell me the amount I’m transferring in USD and what we will receive in AUD:
- $4,300 USD/$5,923 AUD = Which equals a rate of .725 AUD/USD
- .72 AUD/USD is the mid-market rate as reported by Google
So it looks great.
I’m in it now. I’ll wait 1-5 business days for CapitalOne to release the money to TransferWise. Then I’ll wait for however long it takes for the money to move through TransferWise to CommonWealth bank. Finally, I’ll wait 2-3 business days for CommonWealth to clear the funds on their end.
November 24th, 2015
Four days have passed.
The transfer has come through. It all cleared. Here is a screen shot of what I’m seeing via the dashboard of the Transferwise website:
Transferwise (as per the screenshot above) tells me that the transfer was completed for $5,923.79 AUD.
The amount shown in Commonwealth bank is $5,923.79 AUD.
The deal went through. They transferred what they said they would! Huzzah!
Deconstructing the International Money Transfer via TransferWise
This is the actual rate we experienced transferring from CapitalOne in the United States to the Commonwealth Bank in Australia:
$4,300 USD / $5,923.79 AUD = $.72588 USD/AUD
The mid-market exchange rate from Yahoo Finance saw a low of $0.7187 AUD/USD and a high of $0.7216 AUD/USD the day of the transfer. Here is a screenshot:
So depending on the time of transfer, that $4,300 USD would have exchanged at a low of $5,983.03 AUD to a high of $5,958.98 AUD.
Here is a table describing the actual mid-market rate vs. realized exchange rate from the transfer:
| The Day’s Price Point | Mid-market rate at $4.3k USD | Realized from Transfer | Amount Unaccounted for in Transfer |
| When Market was Low | $5,983.03 AUD | $6,023.25 AUD | $40.22 AUD |
| When Market was High | $5,958.98 AUD | $6,023.25 AUD | $63.27 AUD |
So the real cost of the money transfer was between $40-64 AUD (or $28-46 USD).
Free. Nope. Better than the banks? Good question.
November 24th, 2015 (Later that Night)
I received a receipt clearing some stuff up. This was my mistake. I get way too much Email and this was buried in the fray.
Here is a screenshot of it:
Conclusion
My guess is that the banks would offer a less attractive rate and also tag on a boatload of fees.
Transferwise did work. The ordering process was easier than going into the bank and talking to a teller. I will use it again next time I transfer money internationally.
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Finally, they gave me a coupon code. If you want to use it, you could wire your first 3,000 GBP (roughly $4,500 USD) for free. If I had this code when I made the transfer, I would have actually realized the mid-market rate.
Here is the coupon code. Sure, this is an affiliate deal. You get your first transfer free if you use this link. Also, I get some money… I think. Or maybe just some free transfers. Either way, if you use this link, we both win. I did not write this article just to send you to TransferWise. I would have written ill of them if they sucked. Then I wouldn’t have put any links to send people to their service.
I wrote this article because I think international business needs to be cheaper, faster and more modern. Have a great time traveling dingo lover.