You’re Being Fleeced on Currency Exchanges and Cross-Border Transfers

By banks and PayPal alike.

If you need to move money across borders or exchange currency you have to try Transferwise (recently rebranded to Wise).

It’s been around since 2011, I’ve been using it since 2015. It has the lowest fees around by far, and actually gives you the middle exchange rate. 

If you sign up for their free Borderless account you can even get bank account details in several countries for free, balances in dozens of currencies, a free physical debit card, and a virtual one.

Tranferwise fees are close to being symbolic. It’s considerably cheaper than PayPal (PayPal fees are around 5% on the recipient end, and their exchange rates are atrocious and act as an additional hidden fee), and ridiculously cheaper than wire transfers.

Try it out.

How it works, how they are able to offer the middle exchange rate and tiny fees, is that technically money doesn’t actually cross currencies or borders. That’s how it appears to you, but functionally you credit an account of theirs in your country, and they in turn credit the recipient account from a local account they have in that country.

This here is an affiliate link, but more so than the potential affiliate reward, what is really in it for me, if you sign up is that if you’re using it and you ever donate to Anti-Empire then I don’t have to pay the 5% PayPal fee or its hidden currency exchange tax.

1 Comment
  1. Mark says

    Governments and banks will not allow the consumer to get a break, and just incidentally, to pass under the radar so his transactions are unmonitored. If a new system pops up which looks like the consumer can diddle the bankers, the government financiers will simply write a law that says it’s illegal, or the banks must supervise it or something. Government is a pestilence and the banks are a plague.

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