# Money Exchange Rates and what can I do about it



## donieh (26 Dec 2010)

Hi Folks,

I would like to get thoughts or some advice on the transfer of money process from Irish account to US account.

To give you some background I have relocated to USA in the past 6 months with my company for 2 and a half years on a project. I continue to get paid in Ireland in Euro so as a result I need to transfer money to my USA account on a regular basis.
I currently have an online international transfer setup between my BOI account and my Bank Of America account and it takes approx 3 days for the dollar amount to appear. 
The problem I have is that I am not getting what I believe I expect from the transfer however maybe that is just the process and associated fees.

To aid here is one of my examples:

On 26th Oct I asked for $700 to get transferred from BOI which equated to €516.76 (rate of 1.354). I was charged €5 for this transaction _(This €5 is the same no matter how much I transfer)_

On 28th Oct I received into my Bank Of America account $672 and was charged $12 for this transaction.

In summary I transferred €516.76 and received $672 (equates to rate of 1.30) and was charged €5 and $12 on top of this. _(Again this $12 is the same no matter how much I transfer)_

Now on 2 exchange rate websites (Oanda.com and XE.com) the exchange rates for 26th Oct was 1.40 (oanda) and 1.387 (xe) and on 28th Oct it was 1.38 (oanda) and 1.39 (xe). For simplicity purposes I will take the average of these 4 (=1.39) then my €516.76 should've given me $718.30. 

This gives a difference of $46.40 from what I actually received ($672)

When I spoke to people in my Bank Of America office they said they were just told to input that amount $672 into the account from JPMorganChase. 

So the process I see so far is that:
I ask for specific amount to get transferred and BOI takes a cut from the exchange rate (rate on the day was 1.40 and I get 1.354). They then use JPMorganChase to transfer the money who I would guess take a cut also (or maybe they are the folks who get the €5 fee?)
Then Bank Of America deposit the money. Again I would imagine that they also take a piece of the exchange rate.??

Maybe all of this is reasonable as I am new to it but I would like to get any other peoples opinions or if they have any advice for me to do transfer money more efficiently than this.

Thanking you all in advance,
Donieh


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## jpd (26 Dec 2010)

Tranferring small amounts under $5,000 will always cost a lot of commission and charges.


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## sustanon (26 Dec 2010)

sounds about right for those amounts between banks.... give paypal a shot.


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## dubrov (27 Dec 2010)

Have a look at these guys:

http://www.currencyfair.com/

They match people who are looking to exchange money and you should get a much better rate than with the banks. The are Irish as well.

I believe www.xe.com are competitive as well.


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## dubrov (27 Dec 2010)

Just to add an example. You can get 1.3078 right now for exchanging  EUR to USD on currencyfair. The fair rate is 1.31516. So you are looking at a fee of around 0.5% which is a lot better than the 6.5% or so implied by your experience with the banks.

No affiliation by the way. I just think the idea is very good idea and I hate the way banks rip you off when you exchange money


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## donieh (28 Dec 2010)

Thanks Dubrov, will check into this. Much appreciated.


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## JoeRoberts (2 Jan 2011)

You could ask your company to pay a certain amount of your monthly salary in USD and get them to accept all charges for transfering to your account in the USA.
Agree a method of determining the exch rate each month such as mid market rate on the day of transfer each month or something like that.


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## DublinTexas (2 Jan 2011)

The 12$ fee you paid in the US is the fee for an incoming wire transfer and the only way arround that is either to get a bank account that does not have that fee (Citi Gold for example) or to use a provider that offers ACH/EFT transfers (which are slower than wire).

You could have a look at xe.com money transfer, at present they give you 1.3067 USD and there are no fees if you use ACH/EFT as payment option. If you choose Wire than there are fees both by xe and your receiving bank. Unfortunatly they don't have an irish bank account so you need to do a SEPA transfer from Ireland to Germany to pay them. They than do an ACH/EFT to your US account and there should be no fees for receiving that. It usualy takes about 3-5 days for a transfer but it's free and without fees. You can speed it up with Wire to 2 days but it's going to cost you extra for the fees. So to get 1000$ into your account (without fees) you need to pay 765.30€, if you however want it via wire than you need to pay 781.85 (16.55 wire fee) and you get your 15$ charge deducted.

Also you could have a look at transfermate which is an irish operation. The advantage is that you can transfer money from your irish account to their irish account (and they have accounts with the major banks, so it's usualy instant) and they than pay it into your US account. However they only do it via wire transfer and that cost 10€ for them and your 15$ receiving fee. However the money is usualy there next day. Their current rate is 1.3267 so to get 1000$ into your US account (minus 15$ fee) you need to pay 763.74€.

As you can see it's not only a matter of the exchange rate, but also the speed you want. If you can wait a couple of days than xe is cheaper (as you get 1000$ not 985$), but it it's speed than transfermate is cheaper.

Now both of these companies use WesternUnion/Custom House in the background so they are essential resellers. 

So what you can do is open account with them directly and they have the same fee structure as xe.com. 1000$ via ACH/EFT will cost you 765.30 EUR, via Wire it's 781.85€. You can find their website here. The fun is that as an xe.com customer you can actualy log onto both websites with the same userid/password, shows you how far that branding goes. They will always give you same quote as xe.com as it's the same system.

All of this is practical for larger amounts of money (1000$ and above) as transfermate for example requires 1000$ minimum.

Now if it's smaller amounts you might want to look at paypal, which is also the most easy method. Simply upload € to their irish account and than withdraw it to your $ account, but while there is no fee (as it's ACH payment) the exchange rates might not be great, right now to get 1000$ into your account you would pay 768.01€. That is more expensive than xe for the same transfer times. Also they might close your account at any time if they feel like it and there is little you can do about that.

Now if you get a visa debit card linked to your BoA account you also could look at moneybookers. What you do is upload the funds to your moneybookers account (free via laser card or bank transfer) and than withdraw them to your Visa Card which is a 1.80€ fee. Staying on our 1000$ example that would mean transfering 765.96 € plus 1.80€ fee. Now do not use their bank account withdraw to a US bank, that usualy does not really work.

Both Paypal and moneybookers are great for small transactions as it's easy to do but for larger transactions you might want to go with one of the bigger ones.

But if you are really 2.5 years on a project in the US you might want to talk to your employer to see if you can get part of your salary paid in $ from their US account. That way you dont have to worry, your bank see salary which gives you credit card access and also allows you to be more flexible especially in April when the IRS comes knocking. 

I hope you find a right solution for your specific circumstances.


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## ecoman (2 Jan 2011)

*Money transfer*

Xe is western union, Transfermate is Irish based, not the same hence different rates


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## chwu (17 Jun 2011)

Hello, I'm an employee of Western Union Business Solutions formerly Custom House.

donieh - DublinTexas posted a link to our online FX service (onlinefx.westernunion.com) for transfering money aboard. When you use our service, you get quoted exact amounts upfront for everything. So if you initiate a transaction to receive $700, we quote you how many € it will cost you, and you will receive exactly $700 as you expect.

The reason you ended up getting only $672 is because all the intermediary banks that your money goes through from Ireland to the US takes "their cut", including your bank in the US for the incoming wire fee. This is something you nor your bank in ireland can control, and they can't tell you how much the fees are, nor the # of banks your money will go through. (They just don't know.)

For the most part, our service skips the intermediary banks. You pay us by sending money to our local bank account.  Then at the destination country, we send from the destination's local bank. Therefore, less risk of your money getting "lost" (it does happen) and you skip the surprise intermediary bank fees.  It's especially good if you use ACH/EFT, as DublinTexas pointed out, so that the destination bank doesn't charge an incoming wire fee.

Everyone is correct about the fees and speed options.  We have no connection with Transfermate though. We have a partnership with XE and we power XE trade (but we don't own them). Our rates are quite decent and they get better for higher amounts (in the thousands).

The rates you see on Oanda and XE currency calculators tend to be mid-market rates, meaning it's the midpoint between buy and sell, so not real rates.  Only banks or large corporations who are transfering millions get close to that. For the average person, you can expect anywhere from 1-5% mark up, depending on where you go.  i.e. currency exchange in the airports tend to charge at the upper end, banks and online compete in the low to middle, credit cards are in the middle.


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## Wahaay (18 Jun 2011)

Anyone know the maximum amount of euros you can change at a bank  without having to show ID ?


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## Wahaay (24 Jun 2011)

Wahaay said:


> Anyone know the maximum amount of euros you can change at a bank  without having to show ID ?




It's a grand if anyone is interested.

Bizarrely, Irish banks also don't issue anything higher than a $50 bill.


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