Andre in Chile

This article is only useful to you if you have bank accounts in at least 2 different countries and you need to get funds across these counties and currencies.

Many Expats like me have bank accounts in different countries and need to send money abroad or send themselves money from their “home” bank account. The same for me…

When I arrived in the UK in November 2002 I found out that English banks really do rip EU citizens off when they want to transfer money “home”. There were ridiculous fees of GBP 20.00 involved just to send a few quid to another country. Because of this pain I did a little bit of research at the time and came across a company called Moneybookers. Because I am a curious person I tried them as I needed to get some funds from Austria to the UK to get me started. Well I needed a deposit for a place to stay and also having tried British Public Transport for 2 weeks I was certain I needed a car.

Moneybookers is very simple. You register, register your bank accounts on the MoneyBooker site then you can instruct your bank to send money from your bank account to the Moneybookers bank account (via Internet banking) in the same country. It will take a 3 business days to arrive at Moneybookers. You then receive an e-mail advising you that you have successfully loaded your Moneybookers account. The next step is to withdraw the money from your virtual MoneyBookers account to your personal Bank Account in the other country. What you need to know is that MoneyBookers holds bank accounts in all important countries this enables them to offer this service.

The costs involved? A flat fee of EUR 1.80 and a 0.95 % fee if you convert between USD, GBP or EUR. Tell me a bank that has similar or lower fees and you are due a beer. UK Banks charge around GBP 20.00 for sending 500.00 GBP to Austria plus the exchange rate which is usually about 2 % of the Interbank exchange rate. I paid as little as 1.80 EUR plus 4.75 GBP

Disclaimer: The Link to the Moneybookers site includes a referral program and if you use the service I am due some referral commission from Moneybookers. However this is not the reason I recommend them as I am using them frequently and have told many people about them without the referral link….

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