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I’ve always used Currencyfair for international transfers as you could chuck an offer onto the international markets inside the spread and wait for it to be filled but they’ve stopped accepting deposits in anything other than GBP/EUR/USD which is a shame.
What’s the most cost effective way to exchange a 5-figure sum of Aussie dollars, that is currently sitting in an Australian bank account, into GBP and deposit it into my UK current account? Wise seems to get mentioned most often here I think but is it best?
Can’t promise it is best but I have Zing which is now fee free and seems to offer good rates. Backed by HSBC so secure.
Wise is great, it works well and the rates are very good.
Zing seems to be slightly cheaper for larger volumes of money.
Just checking for 10,000 AUD > GBP, Wise gets you 5,240, Zing gets you 5,250.
As you are sending quite a big sum, I would be tempted to split it over a few days just to reduce the chances of it getting stopped, especially if you don’t have an account already.
Just for a laugh, I checked NAB – they will only give you 5,127.
TorFX deserve a mention as they dealt a large albeit in COP with best deal at the time.
I recently sent in excess of 1 million AUD with Wise (for the first time ever) and not a single bank involved asked for any documentation relating to the transfer.
Wise is smooth and professional but often not the best available rate. It depends how much you want to faff around!
There is still a “compare” button on wise.com which shows you competitors’ prices – it’s not as prominent as it used to be because they’re often not the cheapest now.
The is double-edged; faced with saving £12 on a £100k transfer by risking it with Revolut I would not find the decision difficult…
Another +1 for Wise, I’ve moved a decent amount over the years and never had a problem. Revolut on the other hand I got a very small amount stuck and it was a real hassle to sort it out
+1 for Wise again. It’s a listed company with no major governance issues. They could use their valuations to buy a proper bank and get FSCS protection.
Revolut on the other hand…
Revolut Premium is as low as you get (average spread is 0.18%) so if it’s a large amount, upgrading a free account for a month is easily the cheapest. Much more so than even Wise or TorFX.
On your first large transaction you will probably need to go through a proof of funds dance. Wise will be no different.
Revolut Premium is as low as you get (average spread is 0.18%) so if it’s a large amount, upgrading a free account for a month is easily the cheapest. Much more so than even Wise or TorFX.
On your first large transaction you will probably need to go through a proof of funds dance. Wise will be no different.
Even with a premium account the rate for 10k is right between Wise and Zing, before the costs of premium are added on top.
It happens rarely, but I’m always bemused when people say Revolut is ‘easily the cheapest’ – I wonder what combination of currency/amount they are converting, or if they don’t understand that the total amount that reaches the recipient is the key number here.
Revolut Premium is as low as you get (average spread is 0.18%) so if it’s a large amount, upgrading a free account for a month is easily the cheapest. Much more so than even Wise or TorFX.
On your first large transaction you will probably need to go through a proof of funds dance. Wise will be no different.
Even with a premium account the rate for 10k is right between Wise and Zing, before the costs of premium are added on top.
It happens rarely, but I’m always bemused when people say Revolut is ‘easily the cheapest’ – I wonder what combination of currency/amount they are converting, or if they don’t understand that the total amount that reaches the recipient is the key number here.
A colleague looked at live rates every few minutes over the course of a day with Revolut and the range was 0.16%-0.18%. My last exchange was 0.18%. The OP was asking about AUD 100k and one person mentioned AUD 1M, so small variances matter.
In my case, the difference between 0.4% with Wise and 0.18% with Revolut was easily enough to be interesting and a tenner on fees was massively irrelevant.
Have a look at atlantic money.
A colleague looked at live rates every few minutes over the course of a day with Revolut and the range was 0.16%-0.18%. My last exchange was 0.18%. The OP was asking about AUD 100k and one person mentioned AUD 1M, so small variances matter.
This is where you are going wrong – you need to look at total amount received, not the rate.
OP mentioned a 5 figure sum.
Was going to mention Atlantic, but you can’t feed them AUD.
A colleague looked at live rates every few minutes over the course of a day with Revolut and the range was 0.16%-0.18%. My last exchange was 0.18%. The OP was asking about AUD 100k and one person mentioned AUD 1M, so small variances matter.
This is where you are going wrong – you need to look at total amount received, not the rate.
OP mentioned a 5 figure sum.
0.18% is the difference between the spot rate at the time of my transaction and the rate calculated from money sent and money received. I don’t understand what you think I’m missing?
Thanks for all the kind advice.
I need to do this sort of thing 3-4 times per year but with unpredictable gaps – could be 1 month or 10, so potentially signing up to Revolut Premium then maybe cancelling to join again a week later seemed like it might get silly. In the end I “raced” Wise vs Zing through the sign-up process. Wise sorted everything while Zing has got stuck on some manual checks for who knows how long despite my completely vanilla personal circumstances, so Wise won the business.
Thanks again.
A wise choice 😉
Be careful using Revolut for a transfer to Oz, if the reference is important. The reference that you type in is NOT sent to the receiving end for OZ transfers, as I found out when sending money that required a unique reference to be used to indentify what the payment was for. They use a transiting bank for Oz transfers and whoever it is they use, applies their own reference, and you lost whatever you type in.
Thanks for all the kind advice.
I need to do this sort of thing 3-4 times per year but with unpredictable gaps – could be 1 month or 10, so potentially signing up to Revolut Premium then maybe cancelling to join again a week later seemed like it might get silly. In the end I “raced” Wise vs Zing through the sign-up process. Wise sorted everything while Zing has got stuck on some manual checks for who knows how long despite my completely vanilla personal circumstances, so Wise won the business.
Thanks again.
I dropped Zing because every nontrivial transaction was getting sent to manual review.
I just got email that Wise rates are going up.. so -1 for Wise.
just got email that Wise rates are going up.. so -1 for Wise
Except they are also going down. If you convert more you will win, if you convert less you lose.
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