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Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by Youden on Monday April 13, 2020 @11:53AM (#22856899)
FWIW, where possible, I advise having both a TransferWise account and a Revolut or Interactive Brokers account.

TransferWise is fantastic for receiving money. They have local bank accounts in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD and PLN. However for sending money and converting money, their fees can really suck: for $10k USD -> EUR (EURUSD is one of the most liquid forex pairs), they charge 81 USD in fees, or %0.8. Even for local transfers (which should be free) they charge ~1 USD.

Revolut is kinda crap for receiving money (the only local accounts are EUR and GBP, the rest are GB IBANs) but sending and conversion are both free (conversion as long as the amount is <$6k/month). If you use it a lot, they have a ~$100/yr plan that gives you unlimited on both.

Interactive Brokers is literally useless for sending and receiving money (they only accept transactions to/from your own accounts) but they're fantastic for conversion. They process your orders directly against the forex market and charge ~1USD per trade for the kinds of trades we're talking about. The downside is that their minimum account balance is pretty high (~$6k IIRC) and they have a $10/month "inactivity" fee if your balance is below $100k and you generate <$10/month in commissions. That said, if you need a brokerage account anyway, their currency conversion is a great bonus.

And finally, Charles Schwab is great in the US. They charge minimal markup on deposits and withdrawals in foreign currencies (~0.5-1% depending on amount) and they have a debit visa card with no international transaction fees and Visa's exchange rate (~0.3% spread). They're not the best around but they're really great if you don't want to put your money in the hands of a less-regulated FinTech company that has minimal deposit guarantees.

Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by snappieT on Monday April 13, 2020 @02:07PM (#22858285)
The Interactive Brokers $10/month inactivity fee is (kinda) no more - they have a new product called IBKR Lite that has no minimum balance or maintenance fee, but still supports forex: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=45500
Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by Youden on Monday April 13, 2020 @02:28PM (#22858504)
True, and if you're in the US that might be a good choice. IBKR Lite is unfortunately US-only at the moment though.
Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by Havoc on Monday April 13, 2020 @04:28PM (#22859661)
>They process your orders directly against the forex market

Sorta. Orders below 25k are odd lots

https://ibkb.interactivebrokers.com/node/1459

Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by saym on Monday April 13, 2020 @06:24PM (#22860860)
From that page, it looks like odd lots are still transacted damn near the same rate. '1 to 2 basis points' off would be .01-.02% extra
Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by Havoc on Monday April 13, 2020 @07:15PM (#22861226)
Only true if there is sufficient liquidity. Outside of main market hours I've seen pretty thin liquidity in odd lots and thus wide spread (GBP/AUD).

I agree IB is still a pretty good way to go overall though

Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by drited on Monday April 13, 2020 @06:32PM (#22860922)
Am I correct in thinking that interactive brokers won't send from your brokerage account to someone else? If so I guess the process would be to send back to a Revolut account of yours in the target currency after conversion at IB and then send it to the recipient from Revolut /Transfer wise using a same currency transfer?
Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by tim333 on Monday April 13, 2020 @09:31PM (#22861965)
Yup.
Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by the_svd_doctor on Monday April 13, 2020 @12:35PM (#22857311)
Is there somehow a way to receive with Transferwise and send with Revolut ? I guess not. Then how would it work having both ? Receive in Transferwise a bunch of payments, and once in a while send to your bank. Then once in a while send to revolut, and send smaller payments from there ?
Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by Youden on Monday April 13, 2020 @02:22PM (#22858437)
Yes but the transfers between accounts can be fiddly. The options if I remember right are:

- All currencies: Top-up Revolut with the TransferWise debit card - this is free and IIRC works for all the currencies TransferWise supports receiving. However there are limits on both the TransferWise side (how much you can spend with the card) and the Revolut side (how much they permit you to top-up with a debit card). The latter limit increases as you use the card.

- EUR and GBP: Straight local bank transfer - costs ~$1 but only works for these two currencies.

- CHF: Local bank transfer as above - costs ~$1 but requires correctly entering the reference number.

- USD: SWIFT - costs ~$5 and takes around a week.

- AUD, NZD, PLN: Unsupported. Revolut only has a UK-based IBAN and TransferWise requires local account details for these currencies.

Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by JelteF on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @12:52PM (#22868276)
For Transferwise the "Borderless account" is much cheaper then the "Send money" option. I get a price of ~46USD when I convert 10K USD to EUR (instead of the 81 when using the "Send money" calculator: https://transferwise.com/no/pricing/
Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by plantain on Monday April 13, 2020 @01:59PM (#22858202)
FYI Transferwise doesn't have NZD accounts currently, and they have no schedule for restoring them.
Re:Saving money on international payments as a remote freela... by stustustu on Monday April 13, 2020 @06:23PM (#22860854)
Really my one is working fine