OT: international wire transfer

gotta transfer money from a french account to a us one (about $25k).
What’s the best way to do so to avoid stupid fees?

Western Union…?

:slight_smile:

gotta transfer money from a french account to a us one (about $25k).
What’s the best way to do so to avoid stupid fees?

Guess it depends on the amount. My bank charges me when people wire money to me. But it is a fixed fee so not a big problem if the amount is large enough.

Wire the money to me and I’ll handle it from there. Send me a pm for my routing # and instructions;-)

Get a Visa card from the French account and use it in the US, paying it off with the French money.

i know my bank (TD Canada) allows email money transfers.

costs me $1.50/transfer.

not sure about the upperlimits though?

Your US bank will charge you a small fee ($10-20) for receiving the wire. The problem will be at the French end. Twice in the last few years I had the option of wiring money or taking a bank draft in US$ from Singapore. The bank draft was substantially cheaper. But, I was present in Singapore to sign for the the draft. If I recall, the Singapore fee was about 1% and then fixed after a certain point. I would contact the bank and check on options. A fedex-ed draft would probably cost you less than a wire.

I regularly send money to my needy son in the UK from the US ( will he ever be off the payoll? ) and it usually cost be about $25 US for the transfer- I have also done it from RBS in UK to my US account and again the fee has been about 15 UK pounds. Painless and completed in about 2 days door to door…

so even for relatively large amounts this is done quite fast?

1-3 days processing time
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Just wired ukp 20000 from my UK bank to my Japan bank. They say 3-5 days but normally only takes 3.

I could probably find a cheaper way to transger the money if I was prepared for it to take longer, but the bank transfer is easy.

Fees are generally US 25-30 or equivalent for virtually any amount. Wiring from the USA the settlement will generally be same day for USD (if before the cutoff time, usually around 2-3PM) or D+1 for Euro and UK and D+2 for foreign currency. This assumes that the banks instruct the wire quickly and post quickly once it’s received.

I believe the amount is irrelevant to the process and speed. Every time from UK to US or US to US, if the order is place early in the day - has only taken a max of two days. Hope this helps.

I figure that indeed…big firms do that with millions of dollars…but french companies sometimes have strange rules for regular folks.

They (French banks) certainly do have some strange rules.
My parents transfer money once in a while from France to Canada. They just make a deposit to my bank account from their bank. It’s taken anywhere from a day to two weeks to receive the money, usually around 2,3 business days. Fee has always been the same, around 40-50 EUR, IIRC. I never had to pay anything on my end.
Since you are getting a fairly large amount of money transfered I’d ask the bank about the rules for reporting it (anything over 10,000CAD banks have to report to .gov, large money transfers between accounts get flaged as potential money laundering, there’s more stuff than that).

Ahhhh, Dapper Dan knows how to play the game. Banking in Austria, Switzerland, and the Caymans has never been easier.

merde…:slight_smile:
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