Incoming forex transfer rates

[silverfoxrox]

My salary gets paid into my local account every month from Belgium. A while ago I heard about this company, Transferwise, which promises to transfer your money at the mid-market rate, for a small fee (relative to what banks normally charge). At the time when I first looked into it, they didn't transfer to South Africa, but I see that they offer that option now. Here's the website. Check it out and let us know if you end up using it.

https://transferwise.com/

 

[JerryMungo]

www.exchange4free.com - I've used them a lot - no fees and they'll smash your bank's rate.

My salary gets paid into my local account every month from Belgium. A while ago I heard about this company, Transferwise, which promises to transfer your money at the mid-market rate, for a small fee (relative to what banks normally charge). At the time when I first looked into it, they didn't transfer to South Africa, but I see that they offer that option now. Here's the website. Check it out and let us know if you end up using it.

https://transferwise.com/

Very good links - going to give them both a look, thanks!

 

[JerryMungo]

No it's not. From time to time businesses in Africa pay us with PayPal. If they send $1000 (ie $1k leaves their account), then PayPal deducts 3.9% and we get $961.

Quite apart from the actual rate used, if you use a correspondent bank you will be hit with other charges such as SWIFT commission, correspondent fee ($25-30), and other levies. And the SA bank will also charge a handling fee.

If this is a regular thing, have the money sent to your SA bank in USD and make sure they give you a little better than the published Buy Rate - just asking will generally get you 5-7c cents-per-foreign-unit extra. Also, if you can, ask the party sending the funds to specify local and foreign bank charges for their account, not yours. Typically they are shared (they pay their fees, you pay yours) so you might not get that break.

Thanks - good advice, I'll check with our crowd in the US.