Cheapest International money transfers?

I also use xe.com but make sure to do cost analysis while factoring in the fx rate as well. While they don't charge you any fees if it's done as ACH -> xe and xe -> EFT to Australia, their rates are .02 higher than the spot. (1.076 vs 1.057).

They archived my thread about this topic. I will try to find it for you.

The thread is a couple years old now, but full of helpful information.

(It perplexes me that the search feature here is so geared towards hiding archived threads... but that's an old plaint of mine.)

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Xoom is still the best and cheapest and easiest-to-set-up foreign exchange method that I have found for my purposes.

Normally the fee to use xoom.com is a flat fee of $4.95 for any amount of transaction, if you use a bank account for funding. (Funding with a credit card costs more, and I think it's a % of the transaction, but I haven't done it myself so am not sure about that.)

There were a couple of years when xoom.com had no coupons/discounts that I could discover, BUT the last 2 times that I've done an international transfer with xoom (Oct 2012 and Dec 2012), I had to pay no fee whatsoever because I used a coupon code that I found on another money-saving website.

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Here's the thread:
"Inexpensive ways to send money from one country/currency to another."
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1004405/

dawhim said:   I have mentioned it every time this come up. citibank will do it for FREE! I do believe they have branch in there, you need to do it via global transfer.

if you have citibank acc and the person also has a citibank account, u just need to make sure they give u a USD bank account when you do the transfer. I have done it from HK to US, no charge, FREE.

your issue will be converting the USD to AUD and you don't need to do it at citibank. whoever you are sending money to can withdraw it in USD and exchange it anywhere they want.

For the sake of completeness, Citi global transfers aren't available in all countries (don't know whether they're available in Australia). I have been forced to do an international wire (for which I was charged) to transfer money from Citi US to Citi in a certain emerging market country.

An archived thread from last year: http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/finance/1172623/

In short, HSBC Business Direct was the only practical option for free outgoing wires. I called in Jan 2013 and they said they would require a site visit to make sure your business truly exists in one of the handful of states they operate in.

Where did you get that list of country that does free transfer as the one here: https://online.citibank.com/US/JRS/pands/detail.do?ID=InterCiti is a bit different.

dawhim said:   HKnight said:   dawhim said:   I have mentioned it every time this come up. citibank will do it for FREE! I do believe they have branch in there, you need to do it via global transfer.

if you have citibank acc and the person also has a citibank account, u just need to make sure they give u a USD bank account when you do the transfer. I have done it from HK to US, no charge, FREE.

your issue will be converting the USD to AUD and you don't need to do it at citibank. whoever you are sending money to can withdraw it in USD and exchange it anywhere they want.

For the sake of completeness, Citi global transfers aren't available in all countries (don't know whether they're available in Australia). I have been forced to do an international wire (for which I was charged) to transfer money from Citi US to Citi in a certain emerging market country.

because you did international wire, of course you got hit it with fees.

here are the list of country that citibank will do free global transfer, surprisingly, australia is on it. it took me seconds to find.

Australia
Bahrain
Belgium
China
Czech Republic
Egypt
Germany
Greece
Guam
Hong Kong
Hungary
India (selected locations)
Indonesia
Japan
Jersey
Korea (Republic of)
Mexico
Pakistan
Philippines
Poland
Romania
Singapore
Spain
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
UAE
UK
US (selected locations)
Vietnam