I’ve been using a third party wire transfer service for sending money from my US account to abroad for some time as it’s much cheaper than using the in house bank service. I didn’t realize how much cheaper it was until today I sat down and did the actual calculation.
Yesterday I needed to send 1000 Singapore dollars to my account in Singapore. Here’s is the cost comparison between Bank of America and Transferwise. Note, transferwise is a third party service that deducts the money from my Bank of America account and makes the transfer.
Cost of sending 1000 Singapore Dollars = With Bank of America I would pay 774.70 USD = With Transferwise you I would pay: 720.81 USD
That’s a 53.89 USD savings (7.5%). Since I do one or two transfers per month that’s a lot of money by the end of the year.
Here’s the detailed info:
Transferwise Exchange Rate: 1.40120 Wire fee: 7.14 USD Total funds debited from my US account: 720.81 USD Funds transfered in USD 713.67 Money arriving in my Singapore account: 1000 SGD
Bank of America Rate: Exchange Rate: 1.35190 Wire fee: 35 USD Total funds debited from my US account: 739.70 USD Total cost in USD: 774.70 USD Money arriving in my Singapore account: 1000 SGD
Live Market Rate USD-SGD 1.40117 (2017-05-04 17:35 local time
Transferwise is not the only third party transfer service out there. There are a few others. Shop around. But do a dummy transfer comparison to see the difference between your bank and your transfer service.
The other thing to keep in mind, it's far better to make less transfers. For example, send 1000 USD once per month rather than 500 USD twice a month.
May 05, 2017 at 06:26AM
