The Student Room Group

send money to another country?

what is the easiest and cheapest way to send money? i live in the uk and wanting to receive money from my dad who lives in france but needing the cheapest option!
Reply 1
TorFX and Transferwise are exceptional. Excellent exchange rates and tiny fees. Much better than the likes of banks, money gram or WU.
Reply 2
Original post by Kavala
Send it via western union :smile:


i’ve seen it but the transfer fee is 4.90 :/ ik that may not seem like a lot but it kinda is for me.is that the cheapest option?
Reply 3
Original post by anonnnnn1
what is the easiest and cheapest way to send money? i live in the uk and wanting to receive money from my dad who lives in france but needing the cheapest option!

The answer to that may well depend on how much money is being sent -- what sort of ballpark figure are you thinking of? Ten pounds? A hundred? A thousand?

Is this a one-off? Or will it be a regular arrangement?
Original post by Napp
TorFX and Transferwise are exceptional. Excellent exchange rates and tiny fees. Much better than the likes of banks, money gram or WU.

How does XE compare to those two out of interest ? :smile:
Reply 5
Original post by Anonymous370
How does XE compare to those two out of interest ? :smile:

Umm not entirely sure as i've never used XE myself. I believe its perfectly acceptable albeit with a slightly less good rate usually though. However, the last comment is just anecdotal.
@Napp PRSOM :smile:
Reply 7
Original post by martin7
The answer to that may well depend on how much money is being sent -- what sort of ballpark figure are you thinking of? Ten pounds? A hundred? A thousand?

Is this a one-off? Or will it be a regular arrangement?


around £500 and one off
Reply 8
Original post by anonnnnn1
around £500 and one off

I use Transferwise and it's great (my mum and dad send me money each month from the UK to another EU country). They use good exchange rates and charge minimal fees. If you use this converter here https://transferwise.com/ it'll tell you how much your dad will pay in fees and so on
Reply 9
Original post by Anonymous370
How does XE compare to those two out of interest ? :smile:


Original post by Napp
Umm not entirely sure as i've never used XE myself. I believe its perfectly acceptable albeit with a slightly less good rate usually though. However, the last comment is just anecdotal.


@Napp just searched it. transferwise has a transfer fee of £2.10 for £500 which is good but on xe it says theres not transfer fee but it might charge you for some third party thing?
Original post by anonnnnn1
@Napp just searched it. transferwise has a transfer fee of £2.10 for £500 which is good but on xe it says theres not transfer fee but it might charge you for some third party thing?

mate, I dunno what you're on about there. I use XE and there is legit NO transfer/payment fee at all...
Reply 11
Original post by Anonymous370
mate, I dunno what you're on about there. I use XE and there is legit NO transfer/payment fee at all...


i said might. it says charges might be applied by third party banks. and for natwest it costs £15 as an additional fee but the rest of the banks are free
Original post by anonnnnn1
i said might. it says charges might be applied by third party banks. and for natwest it costs £15 as an additional fee but the rest of the banks are free

ah, okay, fair enough mate :smile: YOU WIN :biggrin:
Original post by anonnnnn1
what is the easiest and cheapest way to send money? i live in the uk and wanting to receive money from my dad who lives in france but needing the cheapest option!

Revolut is good too; conversion to pounds is usually a few pence/ pounds cheaper than Transferwise.
You can receive the money/ Euros and set Revolut to automatically convert it when the exchange rate reaches your chosen threshold.
You can get a "virtual" card
Which is good you can use that for subscriptions to other websites and freeze/ delete the card so the money doesn't come out of your account the next month. Gives you more time to cancel the subscription. Or take your money out, delete the account and reopen a new virtual card in seconds.
Interface is not as 'clean' as Transferwise.
You can put your money into ''Vaults" separate to your main Revolut account (Vaults act as a piggy bank)
Good when you're saving up for something like a holiday/ rent.
You can withdraw the money in the vault back onto your card and it's ready to use in seconds.
You can only send money using IBAN BIC/SWIFT if recipent's bank account is not a UK bank.
Sending money outside UK takes a lot longer than Transferwise
Transferwise you can send money to foreign recipent using their local bank account number (i.e without IBAN)

Both of them:
Very fast when sending the money to your main UK bank account
You can get a real card;
Useful when you go abroad because you don't need to convert money in advance. The card automatically does it when you pay for an item in foreign currency.
Reply 14
Original post by Anonymous370
ah, okay, fair enough mate :smile: YOU WIN :biggrin:


:biggrin:DD

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