So, it looks like I am buying a house. The first time by myself.
Well, not completely by myself. My sister has found this house in Florida and the price was right so I bought it. Well, I'm TRYING to buy it.
I live in Europe and the banks charge humongous fees for transferring money to America. There are open fees and many secret (hidden) fees.
So I looked for a method to send money over to America without paying thousands of euros to a bank. And I found TransferWise.
"The creation of TransferWise was inspired by the personal experiences of Taavet Hinrikus, Skype's first employee, and financial consultant Kristo Käärmann. As Estonians working between their native country and the UK, they had personal experience of the "pain of international money transfer"[5] due to bank charges on the amounts they needed to convert from euros to pounds and vice versa. In the words of Hinrikus, "I was losing five per cent of the money each time I moved it. At the same time my co-founder Kristo Käärmann (also from Estonia) was starting to get paid in the UK and was losing a lot of money transferring cash back home to pay for a mortgage there".[6][7]
It inspired them to make a private arrangement, with Hinrikus – who was paid in euros – putting this currency directly into Käärmann's Estonian account so he could pay his mortgage without having to convert pounds to euros, while Käärmann returned the favour by putting pounds into Hinrkus' UK account.[8] This arrangement led them to start developing a crowdsourced currency exchange service to offer a cheaper alternative to established institutions.[9]
From the customer's point of view, money transfers with TransferWise are not essentially different from conventional money transfers: The customer chooses a recipient and a currency, the money to be transferred is taken from his or her account, the transferring company charges for the service, and some time later, the recipient receives the payment in the chosen currency.[14]
The difference lies in how TransferWise routes the payment. Instead of transferring the sender's money directly to the recipient, it is redirected to the recipient of an equivalent transfer going in the opposite direction. Likewise, the recipient of the transfer receives a payment not from the sender initiating the transfer, but from the sender of the equivalent transfer. This process avoids costly currency conversion and transfers crossing borders.[15]
In 2012, the company's charges were €1 or 0.5% (whichever is larger) an equivalent amount in the customer's currency.[16] Conventional money transfer using British banks usually charge considerably higher fees, or require minimum transfer sums and give less competitive rates.[17]" Source: Wikipedia
Well, not completely by myself. My sister has found this house in Florida and the price was right so I bought it. Well, I'm TRYING to buy it.
I live in Europe and the banks charge humongous fees for transferring money to America. There are open fees and many secret (hidden) fees.
So I looked for a method to send money over to America without paying thousands of euros to a bank. And I found TransferWise.
"The creation of TransferWise was inspired by the personal experiences of Taavet Hinrikus, Skype's first employee, and financial consultant Kristo Käärmann. As Estonians working between their native country and the UK, they had personal experience of the "pain of international money transfer"[5] due to bank charges on the amounts they needed to convert from euros to pounds and vice versa. In the words of Hinrikus, "I was losing five per cent of the money each time I moved it. At the same time my co-founder Kristo Käärmann (also from Estonia) was starting to get paid in the UK and was losing a lot of money transferring cash back home to pay for a mortgage there".[6][7]
It inspired them to make a private arrangement, with Hinrikus – who was paid in euros – putting this currency directly into Käärmann's Estonian account so he could pay his mortgage without having to convert pounds to euros, while Käärmann returned the favour by putting pounds into Hinrkus' UK account.[8] This arrangement led them to start developing a crowdsourced currency exchange service to offer a cheaper alternative to established institutions.[9]
From the customer's point of view, money transfers with TransferWise are not essentially different from conventional money transfers: The customer chooses a recipient and a currency, the money to be transferred is taken from his or her account, the transferring company charges for the service, and some time later, the recipient receives the payment in the chosen currency.[14]
The difference lies in how TransferWise routes the payment. Instead of transferring the sender's money directly to the recipient, it is redirected to the recipient of an equivalent transfer going in the opposite direction. Likewise, the recipient of the transfer receives a payment not from the sender initiating the transfer, but from the sender of the equivalent transfer. This process avoids costly currency conversion and transfers crossing borders.[15]
In 2012, the company's charges were €1 or 0.5% (whichever is larger) an equivalent amount in the customer's currency.[16] Conventional money transfer using British banks usually charge considerably higher fees, or require minimum transfer sums and give less competitive rates.[17]" Source: Wikipedia
Can I trust my money to Transferwise?
Security is
paramount when it comes to money transfers. Transferwise
is certified money service company founded in January 2011 in the UK. They have
already earned reputation of reliable and honest financial service. There are
thousands of people who trust them and using their services on the regular
basis.
How does it work?
International
transfers are expensive but what if there were a way to avoid them? There are
many people who have similar needs:
- Frontier
workers need to send salaries to the country they live
- Expats
may want to send money home
- People
may need to pay someone (individual or company) who resides in another
country
Turns out, their needs could be satisfied
without actually sending money abroad. Money can be just exchanged between
them. This requires a lot of cooperation and Transferwise is the one who takes
the role of coordinator.
I needed to get some money over to the lawyers called Ernest Money. It's like a downpayment I learned. I wanted to do that fast to show I was trustworthy and used my bank. I paid 25€ for the "service" and 15€ to get the money there the next day. A week later, the money was still not there. I went to the bank asking for the 15€ fee to be reimbursed but got only snippy lip service from the teller.
I then tried to transfer the money to TransferWise's account in Munich. My online banking said no. I'm only allowed to transfer 1000€ per day. Not wanting to be doing this the rest of my life, I called the bank. This time, I was treated nicely and was able to have my limit lifted to 100,000€ per day (Hey! I'm buying a HOUSE here!) After a successful transfer on Friday, I tried to transfer the rest of the money on Saturday. No go on that so I'm stuck until Monday.
And all this time the people in America are waiting to close the house. And my sister is nagging me to death because she gets to live there.
No, I'm not stressed. OOOOOOOHHHHHHMMMMM....
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