This is very cool to see, and something that should have been at the heart of the EU monetary union project, we're it to serve "the people" and not just "the corporations, in the hope that trickles down".
Very similar to the just unjustified and unnecessary (and hopefully soon to be gone) telco cross border BS.
Of course, if the cost of currency exchange is estimated, it won't necessarily solve the problem I faced transferring money from a German to a Swedish account to pay my rent at the time: not knowing exactly how much of the sent money would end up arriving, and how much would be used up for fees, I had to resort to other payment services with much higher fees... This is purely a UI problem of the banks I tried, but that also means apparently the almighty market does not give them enough incentive to solve problems that are not those of rich people. Who'd have guessed.
I was in the same situation and just made sure to always pay an amount in euro that would definitely be too much in Swedish Crowns once converted. Better to pay 1% extra than to lose much more paying ridiculous conversion costs to my bank.
I've recently started to use them for my freelance income as well (I'm not in the EU), and it's amazing how much I was paying for regular SWIFT transfers.
I don't know if there's any relationship to this news, but TransferWise is putting their fees slightly up next month.
They're probably not going to lose sleep over it - their borderless account gives you accounts in any currency, you get the transfers very fast and can just withdraw to a cash machine, or transfer to your local bank account. I love it so far. Plus still the best outside EU.
The first time I saw TW I thought they were a scam with those fees for EU-non EU payments. SWIFT and even Western Union were a ripoff.
Next step should be regulating currency exchange rates. Not sure about rest of Europe, but banks here have such a high spread they effectively add 2 to 4 % fee to every transaction. And it's even worse than normal fees, because it's hidden from the clients.
If you know about it, you can do something about it (like using Revolut or some credit cards with better exchange rates), but most people just get stolen from.
I ask my bank for an 80% discount on their official rate to exchange USD <-> EUR. They comply.
There are alternative brokers, such as Interactive Brokers, that will also offer great rates. A magnitude better than Transferwise when dealing with larger amounts.
As someone from Bulgaria, I am really glad they are doing this. At the moment it would cost me 10 EUR to make a SEPA payment from my bank to another country in the Eurozone. A few years ago when SEPA was first introduced I was able to make the same payment from the same bank with just a 2 EUR fee. Banks were not happy that people turned away from SWIFT so they simply raised the SEPA fees. I am glad that Transferwise and other fintech companies are able to offer cheaper payments but I would still prefer the banks to have a reasonable fee in the first place.
It's very similar to the EU mobile roaming situation that took years to get better but is now very convenient and I don't need to buy prepaid SIM cards whenever I visit another EU country.
As someone having a GBP, EUR and a BGN currency bank accounts, transferring money from one to the other is really painful and is currently solvable at low cost only by some digital banks - Revolut, n26, Transferwise.
Also interesting that the legislation was pushed by a Bulgarian EMP - Eva Maydell, where fees seems to be the highest.
Wow, look at the percentages these people have been scamming off of everybody for years! That must amount to massive numbers of euro's total. Hilariously, people will be happy with this news.
If you're doing a currency exchange along with the transfer, XE.com is a better choice than TransferWise - they only make money from forex, and their rate is still competitive to TransferWise, which also charges you a transfer fee.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 56.4 ms ] threadOf course, if the cost of currency exchange is estimated, it won't necessarily solve the problem I faced transferring money from a German to a Swedish account to pay my rent at the time: not knowing exactly how much of the sent money would end up arriving, and how much would be used up for fees, I had to resort to other payment services with much higher fees... This is purely a UI problem of the banks I tried, but that also means apparently the almighty market does not give them enough incentive to solve problems that are not those of rich people. Who'd have guessed.
TransferWise still offers a very useful product even after this.
I don't know if there's any relationship to this news, but TransferWise is putting their fees slightly up next month.
The first time I saw TW I thought they were a scam with those fees for EU-non EU payments. SWIFT and even Western Union were a ripoff.
My UK bank (Lloyds) charges 16 times as much as Transferwise for EUR/GBP (5% vs 0.3%) plus higher fees on top of that.
Currencyfair is another good option by the way.
I was sending money from UK to Romania and it was so expensive. About time to challenge those fees.
SEPA fixed that, but obviously some countries need to be forced to remove the high fees -_-
Also, you may be happy for about a month heh
If you know about it, you can do something about it (like using Revolut or some credit cards with better exchange rates), but most people just get stolen from.
And this is a very simply commodified service, so it should be solved by new entrants to the market.
There are alternative brokers, such as Interactive Brokers, that will also offer great rates. A magnitude better than Transferwise when dealing with larger amounts.
It's very similar to the EU mobile roaming situation that took years to get better but is now very convenient and I don't need to buy prepaid SIM cards whenever I visit another EU country.
Also interesting that the legislation was pushed by a Bulgarian EMP - Eva Maydell, where fees seems to be the highest.
Excessive in whose opinion?
If the place wasn't an over-regulated, highly taxed, competition reducing hellhole, goods and services wouldn't be as costly.
We already know what will happen next: other banking services will become more expensive or less profitable services will be cancelled.