Wire Transfer from ETrade (US) to UK, can someone help please?

EdSwippet

coyrls wrote: »

TransferWise don't support ACH debits.

Thanks for the info. Well, that sucks. I guess I'm going to have to try to persuade Vanguard to set this up outside of their usual process, but from experience I have doubts that they will.

The alternative is wire transfer, and I think that I hold enough in my Vanguard 401k to let me wire out at no fee. Of course, then I have to negotiate the 'TransferWise FBO ...' hurdle, and again from experience Vanguard are not keen on this type of wire instruction, though that might just be for international wires (and raises the ugly spectre of 'medallion signature guarantees').

Frustrating, anyway.

AnotherJoe

Hmm, I think I'll just stick witha wire from etrade to my bank and pay the extra !

OldFella_2

Thanks all for your comments. I checked with ET today and my transaction now shows a status of 'Completed' and my ET cash balance shows the correct deduction. I am hoping that the transfer appears with TW over the next day or so.
It doesn't seem to have upset ET that they could not recover the two test payments from TW. I dare say they could, if they wished, wring it out of my cash balance!


OF

OldFella_2

Latest update: I received a notification at just after 3pm this afternoon from TransferWise that my US$ account had been credited with the correct amount.


Flushed with the evident success of this, I then ventured to convert $50 of it to GBP, just to see what would happen. The conversion fee was $0.30, and the exchange rate used was 0.77304 - bang on the nose for exchange rates as published by Dr Google! So my GBP balance received £38.42 instantaneously.


I am now in the process of sending £30 of it (cautious soul that I am) to my domestic bank - this GBP to GBP transfer did set me back £0.65, although still cheaper than the £7 my bank would have wanted just for the privilege of receiving a wire transfer; moreover, for some reason it does not appear to have been instantaneous - in that I am still waiting to see it credited to my destination account - but the transaction status on TW tells me I can expect the transfer to be complete today. If this does indeed happen, I shall be an Extremely Happy Old Hector.



Nearly there folks!


Cheers,


OF

EdSwippet

OldFella wrote: »

... If this does indeed happen, I shall be an Extremely Happy Old Hector.

Nice. I am stuck at the moment. Vanguard will not ACH to TransferWise unless they support both deposit and withdrawal requests, and they don't. I also have a US credit union account, but they won't allow any ACH setup at all if you have an 'international address'. Both are unhelpful.

Wire transfer is all I can use for now. The credit union will only do domestic wire (fine) but charge $20 a time, making it highly uneconomical for modest amounts. Vanguard will do domestic or international (also fine), but require a wretched 'medallion signature guarantee', something more or less unobtainable in the UK without spending a couple of hundred pounds for specialist help. It looks like that might be negotiable with Vanguard, but we'll have to see.

It's a good job this is not retirement money that I need right now to live on. Of course, in a couple of years it will be. Up to now, I've had no real issues with either Vanguard or the credit union, but this is starting to rankle. Way too late for me to move everything to Etrade, unfortunately!

OldFella_2

Thanks EdSwippet, hope you get yours resolved as I can certainly relate to the frustration around doing something that on the face of it ought to be fairly straightforward these days.


I am happy to report, though, that the transfer to my domestic account has completed. For a bit of irony, the transaction type was 'FPI' ('Faster Payments Incoming')! Ah well, still faster - and considerably cheaper - than I might otherwise have expected.


Happy days!


Cheers,


OF

OldFella_2

A quick PS to this story if I may.

One beneficial side effect of having this TransferWise US$ account is that I have now been able to change the payment method for dividends on another US stock I hold (via another US-based stockbroker) which was hitherto paying me stupid cheques for $0.30 or whatever which to my mind were not worth presenting to a UK bank. So now, I will be able to at least derive some benefit from these very small sums!
... and a final PPS - it appears that the E-Trade app allows me to deposit the cheques from the aforementioned other broker by scanning and uploading the front and reverse images of the cheque. One hour later, I am $0.68 better off! OK I am not about to skip the country with that amount, but it may be of use to others in a similar situation?
ATB


OF

MartynasVy

Hello everyone (and particulary OldFella).

I am in a similar situation with E-Trade (ET) and TransferWise (TW), however I am facing some difficulties setting up ACH payment details.

I am not a US citizen (W8-BEN certified) and even though I live and work in Lithuania, thanks to my employer I have some employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) shares on ET. Recently I started to wonder what would the best way to receive cash from ET to my bank account (ordinary EU account at Swedbank which allows multiple currencies including USD).

Thanks to you guys here, in order to avoid bank fees I thought that I will simply add external account at ET using TW's ACH routing number and account number (so I could receive USD to TW and then transfer EUR to my Swedbank account). Unfortunately as soon as I do this, ET comes back with an error message: "You do not have any E*TRADE accounts eligible for online transfers."

I contacted ET support and they told me that it is related to the fact that I am a non-US user. But in that case I do not understand how OldFella managed to make this work? Or maybe this is related to a fact that I have a brokerage account with ESPP shares only?

I would really appreciate any thoughts! Thanks.

OldFella_2

Hi MartynasVy, how are you accessing the bit of ET that sets up external accounts? Your situation doesn't sound that different to mine, so not sure why it's not happening. I've heard that excuse from ET support about wire transfer setup, it didn't sound right to me. Which is why I pursued the ACH transfer option.


To get to that, did you navigate to



Accounts -> Transfers -> Add External Funding Account


?


Assuming you are able to get this far, the account type has to be 'Checking'


OF

MartynasVy

Hi,

Thanks for the answer. I am accessing the part of ET the same way you mentioned above. However ET does not allow me to fill in with TW details and gives me message "You do not have any E*TRADE accounts eligible for online transfers."

For example, if my TW wire routing number was 022222222, ACH routing number 044444444 and account number 123456789, I would use 022222222 as ET bank routing number, account type: checking and account number 123456789.

It is hard for me to believe that I messed up with these details. Also, ET support answer did not sound very convincing.