How to Make Safe and Cheap Money Transfers
Making international money transfers has become pretty easy these days, with most people being able to do it themselves online. Gone are the days when you had to visit a bank to make an international money transfer and largely agree to the terms that they dictated. That is no longer the case with a plethora of new age international money transfer services offering you attractive terms. The cheapest way to send money abroad is undoubtedly through one of these companies, but one should ensure to choose the cheapest, safest and overall best service for their needs.
This is necessary to ensure the safety of one’s money. After all, what good are excellent terms offered, if you are not sure that your money is safe. The major factor that impacts your decision regarding your choice of the safest and cheapest method of international money transfer is the amount of money that you seek to remit. Let us find out what are the options available for different slabs of money, with regard to an international money transfer:
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Amounts Less than $500
If you are planning on transferring amounts less than $500 in value, you might want to use PayPal. All that is needed is that both the sender and receiver have an account. Making the transfer is quite easy and convenient. The money transfer to the receiver’s PayPal account is instantaneous. In fact if the receiver times his or her withdrawal right, they can even get the money into their bank account in a day.
However PayPal works out to be a very expensive proposition when it comes to transferring large amounts.
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Between $500 and $700
If the amounts that you are planning to transfer are in this range, you could consider using international money transfer companies like CurrencyFair and TransferWise. These two outfits are amongst the cheapest, if you are thinking of transferring your money into major currencies like USD, GBP, EUR, JPY and CAD. CurrencyFair provides you the advantage of pre-deciding the rate at which you want your money to be exchanged.
TransferWise is known for its upfront sharing of the rate that they offer you, even before you have signed up for their services. Both these companies are fine examples of leveraging the power of online money transfers.
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Transfers Larger than $7000
For international money transfers larger than $7000, you might want to use services like TorFx, WorldFirst and OFX. They undoubtedly are the cheapest ways of sending money abroad. Not only are they way more economical than banks,but they also become progressively cheaper with an increase in the amount of money being transferred.
Besides, TorFox offers stellar service, particularly over the telephone. OFX on the other hand is quite upfront in sharing the rate they will charge and offers comprehensive online and telephone support. WorldFirst is quite happy to match any rate being offered by a competitor.
When it comes to the safety of the money that you transfer abroad, the operating principle is to take the necessary precautions to ensure that you use the services of international money transfer companies of repute. Specifically, this is what you need to watch out for:
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Find Out if the International Money Transfer Service is Legally in the Clear
All nations put in place certain regulations with regard to allowing companies to provide international money transfer servicers. You should use the services of only those outlets that have the necessary permissions and conform to the regulations that govern international money transfers. This is the very first thing that you should check about any international money transfer service, if you don’t want to risk being swindled of your money.
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What Kind of Customer Service Does the Money Transfer Service provide?
Before you fund an international money transfer, you should find out what kind of customer service your money transfer service provides? Nothing can be more stressful than not knowing whether you have entrusted your money to the right service or not. This can happen if they are not very communicative about their terms and modus operandi.
The service you choose should be reachable online and by telephone. They could even depute an account manager to guide you through your queries.
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Check the Reviews
A great way of determining the credibility of an international money transfer company is by checking out how good their reviews are. There are a number of review websites that could help you do that. Getting to read reviews of actual customers about how good or bad a particular money transfer company is lets you have a fair idea about what to expect from them. You could even refer to a good international money transfer comparison website like Money Transfers.com to determine how good an international money transfer service actually is in comparison to its competitors.