Suggested best bank accounts for receiving money in USD$ 7 November 2022 at 5:22PM in Budgeting & bank accounts 14 replies 289 views

PaulHurst

Hi there,
I'm looking for suggestions on best bank to open an account with to receive payment for work done from the US in $USD. My current bank can do this but the rate they charge for doing this transaction looks high and every time I receive a payment (every 2 weeks most likely) I will have to pay a £7 fee on top of their exchange rates. Your help is appreciated
Paul

DullGreyGuy

Does it need to be a bank account? Could it be something like Wise and then you transfer it to your bank as GBP?

PaulHurst

I'm  note about that - can look into it. Have you used Wise before and if so how have you found it?

Frequentlyhere

I've used Wise and it's been fine, though I find Revolut cheaper and more straightforward (though notoriously not great customer service if you hit trouble).

Whilst both are very established I don't think either have FSCS protection so perhaps don't leave large sums there just to be on the safe side.

edit: FYI, I personally use Revolut premium - it's £7 a month but that gets you unlimited FX transfers, so might easily work out much cheaper than alternatives depending how much you're transferring.

DullGreyGuy

PaulHurst said:

I'm  note about that - can look into it. Have you used Wise before and if so how have you found it?

Used it a fair amount and never had any major problems.

The one word of caution is that outside the UK there can be a wider range of ways to send money than here and the options offered by Wise may not support all of them so for example for a canadian account you can receive EFT Credits/Direct Deposits but not Wires or Interac. For the US however there is less restrictions thankfully but may be worth double checking on the senders transfer method.

sausage_time

Wise works great for receiving in US$, but be sure that the other party does not "Wire" the funds which will cost.  Use ACH (ABA) routing - think BACS - which is free to receive with Wise

https://wise.com/help/articles/2827506/how-do-i-use-my-usd-account-details
.   

adindas

sausage_time said:

Wise works great for receiving in US$, but be sure that the other party does not "Wire" the funds which will cost.  Use ACH (ABA) routing - think BACS - which is free to receive with Wise

https://wise.com/help/articles/2827506/how-do-i-use-my-usd-account-details
.   

I understand WISE make money from the spread in the exchange rate using their own conversion rate. But if you transfer US$ to WISE US$ account there will be no conversion involved.

I wonder how does WISE make money if they allow transfer from the same foreign currency USD to USD$ account ?

There is HSBC Global multi currencies account. But they do not allow you to transfer the same foreign currency to your HSBC Gloma Multi Currencies AC. The origin need to be in GBP and then converted into respected currency using VISA exchange rate before it is saved into your HSBC Global Multi Currencies. Doing this they still make small amount of profit. But about WISE how do they make money if they allow transfer USD to USD$ account ?

stillEuropean

Just to note that Wise has now added Interac as an accepted means of transferring Canadian funds. They didn't until recently as someone aboe has indicated.I've used them for years in transferring money to Europe and to Africa without any problems and plan to use them for Canadian transfers now that Interac is accepted.

sausage_time

adindas said:

sausage_time said:

Wise works great for receiving in US$, but be sure that the other party does not "Wire" the funds which will cost.  Use ACH (ABA) routing - think BACS - which is free to receive with Wise

https://wise.com/help/articles/2827506/how-do-i-use-my-usd-account-details
.   

I understand WISE make money from the spread in the exchange rate using their own conversion rate. But if you transfer US$ to WISE US$ account there will be no conversion involved.

I wonder how does WISE make money if they allow transfer from the same foreign currency USD to USD$ account ?

There is HSBC Global multi currencies account. But they do not allow you to transfer the same foreign currency to your HSBC Gloma Multi Currencies AC. The origin need to be in GBP and then converted into respected currency using VISA exchange rate before it is saved into your HSBC Global Multi Currencies. Doing this they still make small amount of profit. But about WISE how do they make money if they allow transfer USD to USD$ account ?

I'm guessing Wise make their profit on conversions and sending money out to external accounts.  So if I receive US$ into my Wise account  and keep them in US$, then there is no charge.  But the bet is that I'll transfer that to UKP.  For that the fee is around 0.5%, and then £0.34 to then send to my actual UK bank.

eDicky

adindas said:

sausage_time said:

Wise works great for receiving in US$, but be sure that the other party does not "Wire" the funds which will cost.  Use ACH (ABA) routing - think BACS - which is free to receive with Wise

https://wise.com/help/articles/2827506/how-do-i-use-my-usd-account-details
.   

I understand WISE make money from the spread in the exchange rate using their own conversion rate.

You may be thinking of Currency Fair and others. Wise give you the mid-market (interbank) conversion rate and charge a reasonable percentage fee, 0.4+%. So there's transparency, which is totally lacking with most banks. Of course if there's no conversion there's no fee, but usually there's a need to convert at some point.

wmb194

sausage_time said:

adindas said:

sausage_time said:

Wise works great for receiving in US$, but be sure that the other party does not "Wire" the funds which will cost.  Use ACH (ABA) routing - think BACS - which is free to receive with Wise

https://wise.com/help/articles/2827506/how-do-i-use-my-usd-account-details
.   

I understand WISE make money from the spread in the exchange rate using their own conversion rate. But if you transfer US$ to WISE US$ account there will be no conversion involved.

I wonder how does WISE make money if they allow transfer from the same foreign currency USD to USD$ account ?

There is HSBC Global multi currencies account. But they do not allow you to transfer the same foreign currency to your HSBC Gloma Multi Currencies AC. The origin need to be in GBP and then converted into respected currency using VISA exchange rate before it is saved into your HSBC Global Multi Currencies. Doing this they still make small amount of profit. But about WISE how do they make money if they allow transfer USD to USD$ account ?

I'm guessing Wise make their profit on conversions and sending money out to external accounts.  So if I receive US$ into my Wise account  and keep them in US$, then there is no charge.  But the bet is that I'll transfer that to UKP.  For that the fee is around 0.5%, and then £0.34 to then send to my actual UK bank.

*GBP. Wise doesn't charge for domestic GBP transfers.