19 Mar 2008 chalst   » (Master)

International money transfer tips
bagder wrote: Receiving money from abroad is not easy.

And he is quite right, especially when he is in the US. But some things might help:

  1. Wire transfers for some banks become much cheaper and involve dramatically less bureaucracy if you set up a wire transfer authority.
  2. Paypal is convenient, but its cut is outrageous: a few years ago I figured that they would take 8% on a $14,000 transfer from Germany that I was planning; that's $1,120. I used XEtrade instead, who were very cheap and not much hassle.
  3. Negotiating cheques between banking systems is a major nuisance, but your best bet is probably to use an independent money broker. It's mostly a problem the other way around though: in my experience only Americans ever think that settling accounts by sending cheques to addresses abroad is a good idea...
  4. You can sort of make IBAN transfers to countries outside of the IBAN network by using an intermediary (usually a retail bank). I tried this with a money transfer to Brazil where I sent the money to the IBAN account of the Brazilian intermediary's account in the Netherlands, with the details to the recipient's Brazilian account in the "reason for transfer" field. It took months before the money finally arrived...
I've not seen a euro denominated cheque yet, though I gather the French and the Irish still write them.

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