Transfer €100k from a German bank account to a UK bank account

Exodi

What_time_is_it said:

Thanks @exodi.

Is it all done online? i.e. "Have your MIL register an account on Wise, then have her add her German account. Then go to 'send money', input the figures and currencies. Select her account as where the money is being sent from, then on receipient enter the details for your partners bank account." 

My MiL deals with her German bank either in writing by post, or in person by visiting a branch in Germany. Will she have to get in contact with her bank in Germany to do what you've described?

Sorry, it 'can' be done all online but this assumes she had online banking for her German account.

If she doesn't have online banking, she'd set up an account on Wise online and do the same process-  but when you get to the end (where you send money to Wise), she would need to select the 'manual transfer' option and take the details to the branch to have them process the transfer for her.

Really there's not much difference. When you enter the details for the transfer on wise, at the end it says something like:

'Please send the money within X days to 12-34-56, account number 01234567890, with the reference ABC123456'

If you had online banking, you could just do it straight away, but your MIL would then go to the branch with those details and do it - hope that makes sense.

What_time_is_it

Thanks again. That makes sense.
In that case it sounds very much like we would help to set up the account with Wise online. Then we would draft a letter with her to send to her bank in Germany to request the transfer from there to her new Wise account. Then, once the money has gone from Germany to Wise, we would transfer it to my partner's account. Is that right?

Exodi

What_time_is_it said:

Thanks again. That makes sense.
In that case it sounds very much like we would help to set up the account with Wise online. Then we would draft a letter with her to send to her bank in Germany to request the transfer from there to her new Wise account. Then, once the money has gone from Germany to Wise, we would transfer it to my partner's account. Is that right?

To be completely clear -

You are setting up an account on Wise (in the sense you have an account with MSE) - not a bank account or balance where you can hold money - there will be no money held on this Wise account. The reason I say this is because you can set up a Wise bank account (as in you can hold money with Wise) but this is not what you are doing.

You are in essence organising a deal with wise - you would agree to send them €100k euros to their euro account (for example), and they'll send your parter £83k (or whatever) from their sterling account. That way you're not having to pay fees all over the place for FX - this is why Wise is so popular.

The steps would be:

If she's not computer literate (as it sounds like she's not) - then yes, help her set up an online account with Wise and add her german bank details. Next go to 'send money', when it asks 'where from' - you're clicking her german bank. When it asks 'where to' - you're adding your partners account. Once you click submit and it'll ask how you want to pay - you'd click manual transfer and it'll say "OK, if you send the €100k euros to our account details 12-34-56 / 0123456790 / Reference ABC12345678 in the next 48 hours, we'll send the £83k to the receipient account". That's it on Wise - no money has actually gone anywhere or been taken - that's for you and your bank to sort out. You've just organised the deal.

You would then have to sort out the transfer from your german bank to Wise's bank account - it is time limited (possibly 48 hours - because it is based on an exchange rate that you've locked in), so you wouldn't be able to wait days/weeks for letters to go backwards and forwards from the bank. It would have to be done in branch.

If you send the money to Wise (you can check progress on your wise account), they'll update is as received, and then send the GBP to your partners account.

Sorry - as I said, I do this quite often so I probably assume it's easier than it is, let me know if anything doesn't make sense.

Edit: For the sake of me being able to sleep at night, please do a small transfer first to ensure you're all 100% with the process.

Exodi

To help visualise it, a screenshot of my last transfer:

As you can see, on the 28th I set up a transfer for 1000 PLN.

After organising it, I transferred the money to Wise who also marked it as received on the same day.

On the 31st they then paid out in PLN 

What_time_is_it

Thanks @Exodi . That does make sense and it's very clear.
It sounds like the issue might well be the timeframe involved. If they would allow a longer period of time, say 14 days, then it would work with sending a letter I think. Or perhaps we could set up online banking or telephone banking for her with her German bank account. Alternatively we may be able to agree a date with the German bank for the transfer to take place in, say, 14 days time, and then set up the transfer with Wise to match that.
It's proving to be quite a complicated arrangement and we are finding it very stressful, so thank you again for your detailed explanation.

What_time_is_it

...and yes, whatever we end up doing we will test it with a small transfer first.

Exodi

What_time_is_it said:

Thanks @Exodi . That does make sense and it's very clear.
It sounds like the issue might well be the timeframe involved. If they would allow a longer period of time, say 14 days, then it would work with sending a letter I think. Or perhaps we could set up online banking or telephone banking for her with her German bank account. Alternatively we may be able to agree a date with the German bank for the transfer to take place in, say, 14 days time, and then set up the transfer with Wise to match that.
It's proving to be quite a complicated arrangement and we are finding it very stressful, so thank you again for your detailed explanation.

You wouldn't be able to do what I suggest 14 days in the future (you'd in effect be asking Wise to honour a exchange rate for half a month).

You would need to open a 'currency account' with wise (a bank account - so wise would hold the money for you) - then she can slowly send the money to new wise bank currency account - and then do the transfer on wise from her wise currency account to your partner.

Alternatively, she could set up other banking methods - Wise itself is not stressful nor complicated, but trying to cater to antiquated banking methods (e.g. banking by post) would be.

EDIT: appreciate she's likely an older person - I have similar dilemmas with my 70 year old step-dad who hasn't embraced more modern banking methods, who is unable to do anything banking-related without driving 40 miles to his nearest TSB branch.

666666

I used XE.com and can recommend. It was pretty quick and painless and saved lot of money compared to doing it via my bank. I also heard about Wise but never tried it myself, chose to do it via XE.com because I use it at work to check FX and stuff so I felt saver.