receiving money from overseas

sanova76

Hi,


Not sure if this is the right thread.

My brother is sending me some money from overseas. What will be the best (cheapest) way? From what I heard direct bank transfer is not the best deal as the exchange rate is usually lower also the fee.




Thanks in advance.

San

eDicky

Sending from where, and what sort of amount?

TransferWise is a popular and reliable service, if he is able to sign up for an account; there are others.

youngemptynesters

I have used TransferWise , when I transferred money from Portugal to UK.
For Europe
Transfer wise give you an IBAN number - this is based in Germany, and a UK account number. Its called a boarderless account so what i did
IBAN to IBAN transfer - Portugal bank account in Euros to TransferWise bank account held in Germany
This transfer is free as it is IBAN to IBAN in Euros
Once the amount hits your TransferWise account transfer it to your TransferWise UK GBP account - you get charged a small commission fee and exchange rate - they are very transparent and were always the cheapest when I did it.
Once the money is in your TransferWise UK GBP account you simply do a UK to UK bank transfer at no cost.


For my particular transaction (we sold a house) it saved me over £500 in commision if I'd used my Barclays account


So TransferWise were reliable and cheap and all transaction times were very quick.

sanova76

Thanks for the replies.

He's sending from Indonesia. Not sure about the amount but up to £5000. Is there any restriction on the amount you can receive here?

eDicky

There's no restriction on amount, but source of funds info will likely be requested for larger amounts.

The person sending the money needs to initiate the method. Your brother's country of residence and and verifiable address is relevant to signing up for and using a service such as TransferWise. You need to check with various services whether they are available for him.

There are comparison sites such as monito.com to indicate best value for IDR>GBP transfers.

Voyager2002

sanova76 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

He's sending from Indonesia. Not sure about the amount but up to £5000. Is there any restriction on the amount you can receive here?

That is a tiny amount when converted into sterling: why not let him keep it for now and buy you a drink next time you are there?

EveryWhere

Voyager2002 wrote: »

That is a tiny amount when converted into sterling: why not let him keep it for now and buy you a drink next time you are there?

Am I missing something here?

J_B

sanova76 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.

He's sending from Indonesia. Not sure about the amount but up to £5000. Is there any restriction on the amount you can receive here?

Voyager2002 wrote: »

That is a tiny amount when converted into sterling: why not let him keep it for now and buy you a drink next time you are there?

EveryWhere wrote: »

Am I missing something here?

Have you never spent £5K on a drink before?


:rotfl: