Author Topic: Transferring money overseas, any tips?  (Read 96602 times)

Patrick

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Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« on: November 23, 2015, 09:48:00 pm »
Looking to take my 1 bar discretionary allowance to my offshore brokerage. FNB wants more in fees than I'm happy with, has anyone got any good tips on the most cost effective way to do that?

Moneypenny

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2015, 08:53:53 am »
Don’t know TBH, pro’s handling ours – if nobody can't help you here, you can always try deep web for ideas.  :-X

Fawkes85

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2015, 08:08:02 am »
Tried Skrill?

Patrick

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2015, 08:23:13 am »
Ok so I've spent the day on google, and run a few currency conversion comparison sites like this: https://www.fxcompared.com/money-transfer/South-Africa-USA?amount=100000&bType=1&aDir=0&ref=filter

CurrencyFair seems to keep coming up cheapest, but I'd still like to chat to someone in who's used them before deciding. The rates are reasonable, far better than the banks of course. A few people on the myBB forum also suggested exchange4free, but I haven't seen if they quote their rates online.

Patrick

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2015, 11:32:59 am »
Ok so CurrencyFair looked good until I tried to make the deposit when I noticed that their Rand based account is listed in London (but in Rand). So I would need to get my bank to transfer there which I can't figure out. Under the regular transfer page I can't enter SWIFT codes etc, and under the forex page I can't pay in Rand. Also I'd have to pay nedbank a 0.4% fee because they act as an intermediary somehow???

So that lead to me looking into Exchange4Free and Currencies Direct. Both have offices in SA and both seem to charge 1% more than the mid market rates. BUT here's where things got interesting. Both would require me to open a no-fee trading account with Mercantile bank, where there are no fees for transactions over R50000...

Now what I'm wondering, is if I could cut out the middle man and open the account with Mercantile myself, and then use them to do the trade and then transfer to the USA. Anyone tried anything like this? I don't think anyone here has opened up to being a currency trader, so I'm not sure if this has been tried. Anyone?

Strive

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2016, 10:19:13 am »
Hi Patrick - did you ever find out more about this? I'm also wondering if it'd be a good idea to get some assets as far as away from SA as possible, but it does seem like the usual suspects charge an arm and a leg for the privilege.

Patrick

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2016, 02:20:47 pm »
I'm down to Exchange4Free and Currencies Direct. Both seem to charge midmarket +1%, so you'll end up paying R10k on R1m. Pity I didn't do that in November already!!!

There are cheaper exchange places available, but none I've found with an SA account for taking deposits yet. Mercantile said they don't assist individuals, only companies. If you have a company then they will give you an account for R35 a month, and can change money for as little as midmarket + 0.1%.

I've considered bitcoin, but I don't trust it enough at the moment.

gcr

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #7 on: February 17, 2016, 03:15:09 pm »
Patrick - you have opened your account in the USA and have moved some funds offshore to fund the account.
Do the people you transferred the funds to; provide you with direct access to your current balance, and in what currency?. How frequently do you get a statement or can you get access over their platform and view your holding and currency balances whenever you wish to access their platform.
Do you initiate your buy/sell orders, or do you have to place an order with them, for them to place an order into the exchange?
Are the people you are dealing with creditable? - i,e, you don't lose any sleep at night around the safety of your funds?

Not everything that counts, can be counted, and, not everything that can be counted counts - Albert Einstein

JDP

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #8 on: February 23, 2016, 11:28:29 pm »
And opening that overseas bank account, man its difficult to find proper info on this, if indeed you find any.

Patrick

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #9 on: February 27, 2016, 03:35:12 pm »
Patrick - you have opened your account in the USA and have moved some funds offshore to fund the account.
Do the people you transferred the funds to; provide you with direct access to your current balance, and in what currency?. How frequently do you get a statement or can you get access over their platform and view your holding and currency balances whenever you wish to access their platform.
Do you initiate your buy/sell orders, or do you have to place an order with them, for them to place an order into the exchange?
Are the people you are dealing with creditable? - i,e, you don't lose any sleep at night around the safety of your funds?
I'm a little different to most here gcr, I opened a bank account in the states through my employer, it's one of the perks of the job. They're also putting 50% of my salary into that account every month. I asked for 100%, but they said no. They have agreed to put all my travel money in there too. What I'm left with is my local investments dividends, and what remains on my local half of my salary. I live on a lot less than half my salary (my wife calls me cheap sometimes, but I think she doesn't understand frugality).

For the first few months of the year my money will go into my and my son's TFSA, from then onwards I'll have to put it into ETFs. Then I need to figure out when to take it offshore. I was getting tempted again at the lower levels of R15, but then we had budget and the Pravin/Zuma fight. I want the dust to settle there before doing anything.

I've looked onto every possible way I could think of for getting money offshore. It's still looking like exchange4free is the cheapest. Bitcoin doesn't work for us, as bitcoins are about 10% more expensive in SA than offshore. That's great if you want to bring money into SA, but terrible taking it out!

I did find someone who wanted about $2000 worth of Rand they had in a paypal account, so we traded at the mid-market rate. If only I could find more people who want Rand in an SA bank account for their dollars.

bw

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #10 on: March 02, 2016, 10:45:10 am »
subscribed

erwintwr

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #11 on: May 13, 2016, 12:10:14 pm »
Hi Patrick


any updates on this?   Think you wanted to make a blog post about the process as well.



apologies if i overlooked it somewhere :o

Patrick

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2016, 03:58:40 pm »
Still nothing I'm afraid. The cheapest option I've found is still exchange4free with a 1% margin on the mid market rate. Not bad, but I would have preferred better.

I keep hoping that currencyfair will have a local Rand account for deposits. Instead all they have is a london based Rand account. The other peer to peer transfer services don't take rand deposits at all, so they're out. It's a pity, as a peer to peer transfer is perfect. Money doesn't actually even change borders, so in theory you can circumvent exchange laws. I did write to them, and received this reply:
Quote
Hi Patrick, you would need to transfer to our London based ZAR account, and use the Intermediary details provided for the international transfer part of the process. You should check with you bank if they will allow you to do this. If you have any specific questions it may be best to email us on [email protected] - Kevin
The intermediary is nedbank, and they seem to take a 0.4% cut, so in the end the transaction ends up at a similar level to just using exchange4free.

Once I have a reasonable cost method that I've actually used I'll do the blog post.



Whichofsuch

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #13 on: December 20, 2016, 09:30:34 am »
OZ forex has a sister company called Canadian Forex which i have had the most success with. The best rates obviously come with the bigger transfers. best I have had @ 0.016%, then there is a small fee to accept the payment from your destination bank which seems to be consistently around R180-R250 in South Africa.

They also trade the currency before it arrives at your bank, saving you the cost that your bank would charge for the conversion.. I sure Recommend them and their professionalism, especially after the call you to approve the transaction!

I am looking for a good resource on the rules about foreign nationals and expats that work out of the country for more than half of the year( 180 days), mostly tax implications etc.

Any help is appreciated,

Thanks

Patrick

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Re: Transferring money overseas, any tips?
« Reply #14 on: December 20, 2016, 10:10:53 am »
OZ forex has a sister company called Canadian Forex which i have had the most success with.
Was that just for ZAR to CAD or do they do other currencies too?