Best way to send money internationally – Wise

2017/3/10 2022/3/22 Life Tips

Best way to send money abroad – Wise

Best way to transfer money internationally, in my opinion, is Wise.

I’m always looking for the best way to send money overseas, cheap money transfer is the must, and so far, the cheapest way seems to be using Wise.

It used to call TransferWise.

Wise is a United Kingdom-based company offering some of the best exchange rates for sending money. Banks and other providers generally profit by marking up the margins of exchange rates (buying and selling rates), but Wise is transparent and does not mark up margins. Rather, they only charge a small percentage of the transfer amount.

A couple of months ago, when I didn’t know the service like Wise, our Friend in Canada wired us US$10,000 from his ROYAL BANK OF CANADA account to our CHASE bank account. He paid all fees his bank asked him for. However, I received only $9980. $20 was taken by someone, but our Chase bank confirmed that they didn’t charge any incoming foreign wire fee. I asked my friend to double-check his bank, but his bank also confirmed that they didn’t charge any additional fees. To this day, we still don’t know where this additional $20 disappeared!!

The same thing happened a while back when I transferred some money from a Japanese bank to a US bank. $30 disappeared in between, and both banks claimed they didn’t take it.

Their exchange rates were NOT that good to start with (hidden charge), and now there is a trust issue.

I was all up to find a better solution, and I’m very happy that I found Wise. This company has integrity, transparency with the cheapest exchange rates, and a straightforward upfront fee.

Here is a bit more info about the company.

If you’d like to try out the program, sign up using my referral link here, then you’ll get your first transfer up to £500 (USD$600) for FREE.

How to send money internationally using Wise

How to use Wise

Go to Wise website.
Select the country you are sending money from and receiving the money to. Then enter the amount.
Your fee and the exchange rate will be displayed.
Click “Get Started“
Create your account.
Enter your Email address and password.
Select if the transfer is Personal or Business.
Click “Sign up for free”
You may choose to use Facebook or Google account to sign up.
Double-check the amount and country, click “Continue”.
Select “Personal” or “Business“.
In my case, I selected “personal” for this transfer.
Enter your personal information.
Select if you are sending to yourself or someone else or a Business/charity.
I selected “Myself” for this transfer.
If you selected Japan as receiving country, you’ll see the screen below. Depending on the receiving country, the different screens will appear.
Enter information and click “Confirm“.
Check the confirmation screen.
If all look good, toggle “I accept the terms of use and Privacy policy” and click “Confirm“.
The sender’s country is the US, you’ll see the screen below. Select the bank you are using to send the money from.

If you chose “Bank of America” you’ll see the screen below.
Enter your login ID and password to login to your bank account.
I used my Chase account. Once I logged in, the screen below appeared. Click “Authorize Payment of xxx“.
If your bank is not listed, select “All Other Banks” and enter your account information, click “Continue“.