How we Manage our International Banking
Okay, we know that we’re probably a small market segment. Normal, everyday people who happen to have a foot in two different countries, with two different currencies.
We’re not celebrities and we’re not rich. We have very little income and are living off our savings from selling our house (after moving in with my Dad) four years ago. We do have retirement plans, but we can’t start using them until we are at least 59 years old, which is still 10 years away.
For many years, we did wire transfers using a company called Money Corp., but that was a static monthly wire transfer directly from our UK bank account to our US account. It was an okay service, but we had problems with it more than once and it was a palaver to set up since it involved various clearing banks through the process. I never altered the amount that I sent because it was just too difficult and risked the transaction not being sent correctly or on time which, if I wasn’t careful, would then cause my US account to get overdrawn because of various payments I was making each month.
We have bank accounts both here in the USA and over in the UK. So how do we move our money between these accounts efficiently? We use a company called Wise, and we LOVE it. In fact, we wish that we’d known about it earlier in our lives because it would have saved us hundreds of dollars in currency conversion and wire transfer costs. Please note, this is not a paid advertising article, this is a review based on our years of experience using our Wise account.
Let me tell you about how we use our Wise account:
We hold both UK and US currency in our account.
We have two “jars” of money in our Wise account, Great British Pounds and US Dollars. I used to also have Euros in my account because I had a monthly transaction in that currency, but that stopped when we moved to the States and I was able to close that jar when I was done with it. You can hold 40 currencies in your Wise account.
We have a debit card that works the same in both countries.
We have a physical debit card that allows us to spend our money in stores and online, just like any other bank account, in either country.
And there is a helpful Insights feature that allows us to see how much we spend each month and the categories in which we’re spending. So, I can see how much I’ve spent on transport, eating out, shopping, and bills and expenses. I haven’t figured out how to add a category; I’d really appreciate a category of Charity or Donations since I give to a number of different charities every year.
We’ve never had to pull out cash from an ATM using our debit card, so I can’t comment on how that would work, or what it would cost. I know it’s possible, and that the Wise charges will be minimal, although the company who owns the ATM are likely to add a charge for the transaction.
We earn interest on the balances in our account.
Our Wise account acts both like a checking account where we can pay for things, and a savings account that earns interest. The interest rate is variable; at the time of writing it is 3.14% for USD and 2.21% for GBP, and I get notified whenever this changes. It is a respectable rate, and I’m grateful that I get anything (since I don’t earn any interest with my checking accounts in either the US or the UK).
I will say that Phil has struggled with earning interest on his Wise account. It seems that there is an issue with his name on his US Social Security card and the name on his Wise account. One includes his middle name and the other doesn’t which has prevented him from earning interest on his Wise account. We’re almost to the point of deciding to cancel his Wise account and creating a new one with the corrected details. So, be careful if earning interest is something you’ll want to do with your Wise account; be sure to sign up with your formal, legal name.
We can easily send and receive money to/from our Wise account.
Every month I send my Dad monthly housekeeping money so the electric bill, the property tax bill, and other bills can be paid. This transaction costs me $1.13 in addition to the money that I send him. And it costs nothing for me to pay into my Wise account from my US or UK bank accounts.
In fact, the only thing that we can’t do with our Wise account is to write and receive physical checks (cheques in the UK). That’s the key reason why we still bother to hold bank accounts with banks that have branches in both countries. It doesn’t appear that Wise has a mobile check paying-in feature like our UK account has, and they don’t have physical branches like our US hometown account has where we can physically go and deposit checks.
There are some Wise features that we don’t currently use.
We don’t auto convert our currency from GBP to USD or vice versa. At this stage, we only convert as and when we have a need for one or the other currency. I’m not close enough to currency movements to be able to maximize the profits that can come from playing the currency markets.
The other feature we’re aware of that we’ve never used is the “bill split” feature. This allows you to request money from your friends and track their payment. Useful if you’ve paid the bill at a restaurant and need to collect from the wider group. Many restaurants refuse to provide separate checks for large groups so this feature could be very useful, especially if your party is a group of people who are familiar with online banking.
They have a generous referral program.
I must admit, that I don’t know a lot of people like me who have international banking needs like Wise provides. But if I did, Wise effectively provides $25 for every person referred. To limit their exposure, they require a person to refer three people before they pay $75, but that’s a nice incentive to tell others.
So, if you’re considering some international travel, or if you have the need to conduct business in multiple currencies, I strongly recommend that you get yourself a Wise account, and I ask that you consider using my referral link so that I can earn Wise’s referral bonus. Here is my link. https://wise.com/invite/dic/sandrap1544
What about you?
Are you an international traveller, or do you want to be? Do you have family living abroad to whom you send or receive money? How do you transfer money between countries?
I’d love to hear about your experience with other companies that move money across borders. Perhaps there’s an even better solution than Wise, but I doubt it. Let me know by sharing your thoughts using the form below.
