Has anyone used Transferwise?

tea and coffee

I was paying someone for a hoise rental (I've rented from her before and just did a bank transfer).
She asked if I would please use transferwise. I created an account and followed the instructions. It asked to put in her UK account details and then asked me to make a bank transfer to Transferwise in Estonia in euros, which it will apparemtl then pass on to her.

Is that right or have I been done? Sounds all very convoluted.

vard

tea and coffee wrote: »

I was paying someone for a hoise rental (I've rented from her before and just did a bank transfer).
She asked if I would please use transferwise. I created an account and followed the instructions. It asked to put in her UK account details and then asked me to make a bank transfer to Transferwise in Estonia in euros, which it will apparemtl then pass on to her.

Is that right or have I been done? Sounds all very convoluted.

It has been a life saver for me. Save so much over standard bank fees and their ****ty rates. Living in 3 different countries. Saved myself a lot. And now have a borderless debit card.

Dardania

Review of it here:
TransferWise Borderless Account - Hello World, Goodbye Complexity, Fees Okay? Review & Walkthrough
https://youtu.be/Hsp4dHMwYE8

I’ve found it a very stable and reliable service. And so transparent with their fees which is refreshing in finance.

MorganIRL

I have used it to transfer money to people in the UK a few times, found it great as it was less hassle then banks and costs were a fraction of banks..

Quackster

No quibbles with TransferWise, but for smaller transfers Revolut is both faster (as you can instantly add funds with your credit/debit card) and cheaper (completely free for currency exchange under £5,000 a month).

When I use Revolut to make payments to UK bank accounts, it's in the recipient's account in just a few minutes.

NSAman

Have used it and use it regularly. Bought a house in Ireland using it and also transfer cash to my accounts in Ireland to pay bills. It saves me a fortune on bank fees and also exchange rates....larger transfers used on it though.

Chris_5339762

Yes I use it all the time. Perfectly safe and no issues. Just make sure you're sending it to the correct account as it could be messy if you type it in incorrectly.

dennyk

I use it regularly to send money to my US account; better exchange rates and much cheaper fees than a wire transfer (which is really the only other way to send money from here to the archaic US banking system). The only real downside is that their least expensive transfer option can take some time, up to several business days overall for the transfer to be completed and fully cleared in the recipient's account, as the methods they use are slower than a direct wire transfer (particularly on the US end; again, the US system is pretty ****ty for individual consumers sending money between accounts...). That doesn't generally matter to me, as I'm just sending over some funds to drop into my US investment accounts from time to time, but it could be a consideration if you need the money to be available to the recipient urgently. Transferwise do sometimes have faster transfer methods available as well (depending on the countries and currencies involved), but those are generally the equivalent of wire transfers and incur much higher fees, though you'll still usually get a better exchange rate than the bank will give you, at least.

tea and coffee

Thanks everyone. Sounds like it was ok then. The holiday home rental lady seemed to be of the impression, and give me the same impression, That it would be an immediate transaction (like PayPal or similar) and wasn't that reassuring when I told her about how it was transferring so I thought I'd made a mess up.