Best way to send large amount of money overseas

spiritus

We're in the process of buying a property abroad (in the EU) and wondered what are the best ways to send large amounts of money abroad.

A bank would be the safest but their exchange rates are poor compared to some of the specialist brokers/companies. However, the specialist companies do not have full FCSA guarantee, so in theory, if something happened to one of these companies whilst they had your money then it's sayonara.

Ayr_Rage

What is a LARGE amount?

I use WISE to send funds to Thailand, they only have my money for minutes before I send it on.

spiritus

Ayr_Rage said:

What is a LARGE amount?

I use WISE to send funds to Thailand, they only have my money for minutes before I send it on.

Over £ 50,000

wmb194

spiritus said:

We're in the process of buying a property abroad (in the EU) and wondered what are the best ways to send large amounts of money abroad.

A bank would be the safest but their exchange rates are poor compared to some of the specialist brokers/companies. However, the specialist companies do not have full FCSA guarantee, so in theory, if something happened to one of these companies whilst they had your money then it's sayonara.

*FSCS. HSBC's Global Money account offers very competitive rates. To open it you also need a HSBC current account.

Wise is good though and is quite a large, profitable company listed on the LSE so it's easy to research (LSE:WISE).

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/current-accounts/products/global-money/

Ayr_Rage

Although Wise's fees may look large the fact that they use mid-market rates means you end up with more in foreign funds than using the major banks.

Currency brokers may be an option, just get on the phone and check their rates and fees against Wise's live rates on their website.

Depending on exactly how much you plan to send, getting the money into your Wise GBP account can be problematic if your own bank limits transfers to £20-25k per time.


I've had issues with Chase and Santander when funding Wise with large/multiple transfers and the Spanish Inquisition on the required call to Santander was particularly painful.

spiritus

Ayr_Rage said:

Although Wise's fees may look large the fact that they use mid-market rates means you end up with more in foreign funds than using the major banks.

Currency brokers may be an option, just get on the phone and check their rates and fees against Wise's live rates on their website.

Depending on exactly how much you plan to send, getting the money into your Wise GBP account can be problematic if your own bank limits transfers to 
£20-25k per time.

I've had issues with Chase and Santander when funding Wise with large/multiple transfers and the Spanish Inquisition on the required call to Santander was particularly painful.

Thanks. The concern is the lack of guarantee from any company which isn't a conventional bank. I don't think Wise are covered by the FSCS guarantee. Although there is a miniscule chance of something going wrong at the moment we might use Wise the risk remains that we could lose all our money if we were extremely unlucky

pramsay13

We used Wise to send money to France. 

grandweb

Checking Wise now, sending £50,000 would give the recipient €57,418.31 after £135.21 in fees. Worth just doing some other comparisons to see if you can beat it. Checking HSBC, you'd end up with €720 less. Wise isn't protected by the FSCS but they do safeguard your money in a separate account, so if your worry is that they go into administration, that money can't be touched.

pecunianonolet

https://atlantic.money/gb/en/

wmb194

grandweb said:

Checking Wise now, sending £50,000 would give the recipient €57,418.31 after £135.21 in fees. Worth just doing some other comparisons to see if you can beat it. Checking HSBC, you'd end up with €720 less. Wise isn't protected by the FSCS but they do safeguard your money in a separate account, so if your worry is that they go into administration, that money can't be touched.

HSBC Global Money’s indicative quote is better than that at €57,213.61:

grandweb

wmb194 said:

HSBC Global Money’s indicative quote is better than that at €57,213.61:

Ah, thanks. I think I was looking at the regular HSBC one - not global money

Your calculation results
Exchange rate
GBP 1 = EUR 1.1340
You pay
GBP 50,000.00
You receive
EUR 56,698.06

It's not as bad then, but still €205 worse off in fees/exchange differences