There are many reasons that you may need to send money to someone overseas in the future if you haven’t already.
You may need to send money to a friend or relative travelling overseas in an emergency. You may need to send money to yourself to pick up for when you yourself travel overseas. You may buy property, have to pay tuition for yourself or a child studying abroad, or you may need to pay an employee or freelancer.
Regardless of why you need to send money overseas, the simple fact of the matter is that making any international transfer or payment is a little bit more complicated (and expensive) in contrast to sending money to someone who lives within the same country as you.
Here are the top challenges that currently exist with sending money to someone overseas:
Getting A Guaranteed Exchange Rate Over An Estimated One
When you get a quote from a money transfer service, the exchange rate you give will usually be estimated instead of guaranteed. This is because the exchange rate is always shifting constantly; the rate that you see one hour may not be the same one the next hour, for instance.
Even though you’ll be paying just a small, fractional margin of the exchange rate, it should still matter to you what the rate is. The only way to ensure that you get a rate suitable for you will be to ask for a guaranteed exchange rate over one that is merely estimated.
Finding A Low Fee
To send money to someone overseas, you’re going to have to pay a fee to do so. With a bank wire transfer, you’ll almost always have to pay a flat rate of around $35 to $50 on average, which is very high.
In contrast to this, money transfer services tend to charge a percentage rate instead, but this rate can vary significantly from as little as one per cent all the way up to thirty per cent or so. Your challenge will be to find a service with a low and competitive fee that you can afford.
One way to pay a lower fee will be if you are willing for the money to send at a slower rate. For example, in the case of Remitly, you’ll pay a lower overall fee if you are willing for a 3-5 day business transfer speed over one that would only be a few minutes.
Sending Money To The Country, You Need To
As a final note, you know know that not every money transfer service or credit card service will send money to any and every country, so make sure that your service of choice does before you set up an account.
Challenges With Sending Money Overseas
In all honesty, sending money overseas isn’t really all that difficult, but there are definitely more steps that you will need to take in contrast to sending money to someone who lives domestically.