Key Post The best way to transfer large amounts in euro to and from other currencies

OK, here is my experience with Currency Fair

https://www.currencyfair.com/

1) Set up an account on their website - very straightforward.
2) Uploaded passport and bank statement for ID purposes - no problem
3) Filled in the bank account details to which I wanted the euro to be paid ( my own euro bank account in Dublin)
4) They texted me with a code as I was entering bank account details and I entered this to confirm it was correct.
5) They gave me their bank account details into which I was to transfer the money.
6) Went to my Ulster Bank Sterling account and transferred the Sterling to them.

This has taken about 10 minutes in total. Every "form" was filled in online. I haven't spoken to anyone. The only offline event was the code to my phone to verify the bank account.

Got an email from them

"We have received your identity documents and our Customer Activation Team will review them shortly. This should take no longer than one business day. If we require any additional documentation from you, we will contact you via email.

Once we receive the money, we will automatically exchange it at the best available rate and transfer the money to Brendan Burgess (Account number ending in 7000). If you have already sent in the money, please disregard this email."

Of course, they might still come back to me asking me what I had for my breakfast and to do a blood test.

By comparison, this is where I got to with Transfermate (with whom I already had an account which had lapsed!)

1) I had to fill in a PDF application form, print it off and sign it.
2) I had to scan the form and email it to them.
3) They said that they would call me when Compliance was happy
4) They called me to know the source of the funds so I sent them a copy of the stockbrokers dealing note and my Ulster Bank statement.
5)They then emailed me to say that this was not satisfactory
  • I had put my AIB bank account on the form and not the Ulster Bank account (this makes no sense to me - they just asked me for one bank account details)
  • They said my name was not on the Ulster Bank statement - it was.
  • They said that the Ulster Bank statement did not show me to have enough funds - it did, but they would have had to have added the lodgment which had not cleared to the balance to see that. (Anyway that is irrelevant, if I could not pay the money, they would not have paid me the euros)
6) I asked for the contact details of the person to whom I could complain.
7) I got an email back with the name of my account manager but he can't call me today
8) Someone else left a voicemail asking me to fill in the form again with the Ulster Bank details.

Brendan
 
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Brendan Burgess said:
Of course, they might still come back to me asking me what I had for my breakfast and to do a blood test.
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Just got an email from them:

"Your GBP has been exchanged to EUR at the rate of 1.1392 and we have instructed our bank to transfer the money to Brendan Burgess (Account number ending in 7000).

We estimate that Brendan Burgess will receive the money on Monday, 25th of June."

I didn't even check the rates. The service is very good. Astonishing that Transfermate interpret the Money Laundering rules so differently.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Astonishing that Transfermate interpret the Money Laundering rules so differently.
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Completely agree, I had a similar experience that swallowed a load of my time after I got the account opened, as I went to use them shortly after the account was opened they started requesting additional supporting paperwork and wanted a copy of the originating bank account statements which I was not prepared to give as it would have taken me days to get these and circle back meantime the rates keep moving, I got onto CurrenyFair and did the transaction that day, no more fuss.

Very unfriendly and distrusting actually, perhaps a training matter, in any event look how you got sorted today, an easy to follow customer focused system unlike the other.
 
Just checked my AIB account and the money is in there overnight.


Just to remind you that Transfermate raised the following difficulties:

Brendan Burgess said:
  • I had put my AIB bank account on the form and not the Ulster Bank account (this makes no sense to me - they just asked me for one bank account details)
  • They said my name was not on the Ulster Bank statement - it was.
  • They said that the Ulster Bank statement did not show me to have enough funds - it did, but they would have had to have added the lodgment which had not cleared to the balance to see that. (Anyway that is irrelevant, if I could not pay the money, they would not have paid me the euros)
Click to expand...

They left a voicemail yesterday morning to say that Compliance was now happy enough with the Ulster Bank statements and so all I have to do is fill in the form again and they will do the deal. Their account manager is on holidays today, so he can't ring me about my complaint.

They rang again yesterday afternoon to tell me that the Account Manager was getting married and would I just fill in a new form and send it in. I reminded her that I had asked for the name of the person to who I could complain. She said she would send that on to me.

Then I got another call from someone asking me to call them back.

So I think I have now asked three times for the contact details of someone to complain to, and they have not given it to me.

They have wasted so much of my time.

Brendan
 
Just want to let you know, some months ago I asked for advice about transferring money to U.K. Got some recommendations on this site and chose Currency Fair.
They were excellent. Thank you.
 
Having had a great service from Currency Fair, I am now very annoyed at them. But I don't know if it's user error on my part.

I paid a bill early in March in sterling. They quoted me a euro amount. I paid it immediately. They paid the supplier the exact sterling amount.

I paid a bill on Monday. They quoted me a euro amount.

Monday was a Bank Holiday.

This morning, Wednesday, they have translated the euro amount into sterling at today's rate and they have deducted a further £2.50 "After deducting our standard transfer fee of GBP 2.50,"

So I am leaving the supplier short and will have to make a further payment.

They told me that it takes one or two processing days for an AIB to AIB bank transfer. I thought it was instant.

They told me that I wasn't charged the £2.50 the last time due to a promotion.

I was not aware of any of this.

If I get a bill for £x , that is what I want to pay. Can I not do that with Currency Fair?

Brendan
 
This was their explanation to me.

EUR transfers can take 1-2 business days. Unfortunately it does not matter if it is AIB to AIB.

That is not correct and I have responded accordingly.

https://aib.ie/ways-to-bank/internet-banking-domestic-payment-cut-off-times

upload_2019-3-20_12-4-13.png


Due to the fact that CurrencyFair is a peer to peer marketplace, our rates are constantly fluctuating, therefore it is not possible to pre-book a rate. In order to avail of the rates you see on CurrencyFair, you will need to have money in your CurrencyFair account.



While this makes sense, it is not how I understood it to work. I assumed that the price quoted was fixed.

And that is exactly how my previous payment went.

Brendan
 
Currency Fair is telling me that it takes one to two business days because they have a business account?

We have a business relationship with AIB. Therefore, different processing times apply, which are 1-2 business days.
 
I use TORFX and no problems, only one way STG to Euros. But how do I check the date these posts were made??

ps

just found out, you hover!!
 
A rate quote is just that. If you like it you can book it but you must have funds in your account at that time of booking,
 
Hi,
I have a US brokerage account in which I trade US equities. I would like to transfer some cash from this account to my bank a/c here in Ireland. I've looked at both Xe.com and Transferwise to get a good fx rate from USD to EUR. The process involves wiring the USD to them and then they convert the USD to EUR and send it on to your IE bank account. However they both state that the US account you use to transfer the US dollars to them must be under your own name. Since I am using a brokerage account to trade stocks, the bank account that I send the funds from to them is not in my name, but is the account of the brokerage. I can transfer directly from the brokerage to my account, however there is a $30 fee for this and I'm not sure what the exchange rate would be. Has anyone found a good solution?
 
I have used revolut, not had any limit issues (pay the premium sub). Just don't move Fx at the weekend as there is a slight margin that is not there Mon-Fri.
 
I would recommend wise based on my experience yesterday.

I wanted to do a large USD to euro conversion, and here was my experience.

Priced xe.com, currencyfair, wise.com, revolut

Wise offered me the highest number of euros, and the rate closest to what was shown on Google as the exchange rate.

I had an old account with xe, but I created new accounts with both currencyfair and wise, in both cases I provided a pic of my passport and a selfie and was registered successfully within a few minutes.

As wise was offering highest number of euros I used them.

I registered my destination N26 iban account with wise.

I was sending money from a US based broker, using a 'local US wire' to wise's US bank account with a reference number to identify that it was for me.

I did a test transaction and from sending the wire to the money landing in my iban took about one hour.

I then did the full transaction and it also took about an hour.

Fantastic user experience to be honest.
 
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I've used Atlantic Money a few times, which is a start up (Irish, I believe). They charge a flat rate £3 per transaction. Everything done via the app.

atlantic.money

Atlantic Money

With a flat £3 fee, always the live exchange rate, and an app designed just for you, moving money across borders has never been so easy.
atlantic.money atlantic.money

They talk about using safeguarding accounts licenced by FCA.

I have found they are better than Revolut if you have exceeded their free transfer allowance (£1000)

However I have also used Wise in that instance.
 
SPC100 said:
Fantastic user experience to be honest.
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Second Wise.com........they seem to have even improved their experience recently.....I can pretty much move €2k or €3k from AIB (debiting the account via debit card) and the funds are converted instantly and end up in my US bank account in the space of minutes now.

The above was facilitated, I'm assuming, by the low amount which meant the debit card option was enough to pull the funds instantly from my Irish account....once they hit Wise's Euro area account.....they we're clearly able to leverage the FedNow RealTime payment network in the USA and move the funds across in an instant from their US account to mine......very impressive speed and the rate was unbeatable.

Full SEPA Instant in and out transfers starting later this year with the Irish banks should make even larger transfers similarly instant.......married to bank account in the FedNow system on the US side.......with Wise sitting in-between as the FX agent.....your looking at basically instantaneous FX conversion and payment settlement across borders....quite the achievement.

Never investigated it from the Irish side.......but the absolute best FX rates might actually be available through your brokerage account.......Interactive Brokers are ridiculously competitive on FX exchange and I know folks who use them as a defacto FX broker.......converting their home currency to a foreign one....and then asking IBKR to pay that currency out to their foreign bank account
 
Seaniemed said:
I've used Atlantic Money a few times, which is a start up (Irish, I believe). They charge a flat rate £3 per transaction. Everything done via the app.

atlantic.money

Atlantic Money

With a flat £3 fee, always the live exchange rate, and an app designed just for you, moving money across borders has never been so easy.
atlantic.money atlantic.money
Click to expand...
Very Interesting! Thanks! they claim they are 10x cheaper then wise, and use wise as pricing benchmark.

If they use the same interbank rate as wise, it would have saved me more than 10x on fees on my large transaction.

One reason I was really happy to use wise was that the payments from US source account to wise was very quick (about an hour), and the rate was at a recent all time high, and I wanted to do the transaction quickly.

Do you have any experience locking in a rate with Atlantic or how long it takes to get money into them from a US account.
 
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