Cheapest way to send SWIFTBIC payments to HK account in USD

[Karimbo]

I pay my chinese suppliers directly to their bank accounts.

I have access to 2 business bank accounts.

Both of them give me a rate thats 3% lower than the currennt exchnage and then slap on a £15-£18 fee as well.

Todays rate GBP to USD is 1.27

Barclays doing transfers at 1.24
Lloyds doing transfers for 1.23

I was wondering whether it's possible to get a better transfer rate with a different bank?

Thanks

 

[NickZ]

Use ******.
Your Chinese supplier is open to it?
He opens a wallet, you open a wallet, send a small amount first.

Litecoin you can buy from the litecointalk.io forums supplier. (Not allowed to place links) Litecoin is easy to get, fast and has hardly any fees.

 

[Karimbo]

****** is illegal in China.

Just looking for normal softback recommendations.

I pay a fee to buy ******, transfrler ****** and they pay a fee to convert their ****** tomcurrency and legal consequences.

Doesn't seem like a simple solution.

 

[NickZ]

mining and trading is, holding is not so far I know.

 

[NickZ]

Reuter on that ban, they speak of public institutions.
reuters.com/world/china/what-beijings-new-crackdown-means-******-china-2021-05-19/

 

[Karimbo]

I don't know what you think someone who receives a bunch of ****** in China is supposed to do with it?

They will need tomturn it back into currency to pay their suppliers, staff etc. If exchanges are banned. How does a Chinese company turn their ****** into cash.

I'm just looking for suggestions onnthe cheapest way to make swift payments that's all.

 

[japancool]

Wise.

 

[japancool]

Use ******.

Just quit it with the ****** this, ****** that.

 

[NickGrogan]

Wise is quick and easy, you'll get better exchange rates and lower fees. Bank transfer into wise account and then paid direct to their account, 2 steps. Easy.

Revolut are also easy and cheap.

 

[fisicx]

Revolut are also easy and cheap.

That's what I use

 

[MOIC]

Wise

 

[Mister B]

We use Wise too. Moved a shed load yesterday at a rate just shy of 1.27.

Fast, cheap and efficient. For us anyway.

 

[Karimbo]

Thanks for the recommendartions. I had some difficulty a long time ago, where I couldn't trasfer USD to a hong kong account. It would only allow me to send HKD there (only local currency allowed).

Granted this wa s areally long time ago when it used to be called transferwise. Is that no longer a constraint?

I also have access to revolut I opened it a long time ago for their cheap payment processing rates. So I might be incentivised to use revolut more.

The seller has not said anything about fees. Is it normal for sender to cover all the swift fees (senders and recepients)? Or do you just pay your fees?

 

[Mister B]

We just pay our fees, factory pays theirs.

We send all the time to both China and HK and have never had any issues.

 

[NickGrogan]

I normally pay all fees, they're not that high on wise so doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.

Used to do bigger stuff to Europe, before Tranferwise/wise was a thing, then we'd split fees, but this was always agreed upon upfront.

Wise lets you send $ to an overseas account, or £ or any other major currency.

 

[Karimbo]

Thanks, I made my first transfer with revolut and it was a lot cheaper than batclays. Spot rate and just £5 fee.

They even have a euro and usd accounts opened for me. So handy for those who sell all over and want to keep funds in native currency without converting

The caveat here is revolut are an e-money institution. Not a bank so they are protected like a bank. So I wouldn't keep large balances in there.

 

[DontAsk]

Not a bank so they are protected like a bank.

?

 

[DontAsk]

Thanks, I made my first transfer with revolut and it was a lot cheaper than batclays. Spot rate and just £5 fee.

No fees with Wise.

 

[Karimbo]

I'm OK with the £5 fee. If they're not charging a fixed fee, then they're taking some off the conversion rate.

it's just the faff of setting up a new account really. I'm sure there's probably just a hair difference between the two services.

 

[AmazonGeek]

We use FX companies to buy stock from China in USD and play them off against each other to get decent rates. Ocean and Halo are the latest two we use (mainly Halo). They don't charge fees and you get pretty close to the bank rate.

I've just done a dummy trade for $10,000 (USD) and the quote was 1.266 at 16:25 today, no fees. I transfer the money to them in sterling and they send it to China the same working day if it is done early enough or the next at the latest.

 

[Karimbo]

?

sorry damn forum doesnt allow edits after 30 minutes.

I was meant to say revolut terms say they are an e-money service, so they are not fscs protected.

 

[Karimbo]

No fees with Wise.

Is this still valid?

I just used wise for the first time and I got slapped with fees.

My personal experience here.

On revolut I used to just pay a flat £5 fee for all my trasnfers, it worked well until until they took away free accounts and I had to pay £10 a month to have an account. I closed the account


I made my first wise transfer from a card. Sending 970USD cost me £17.24 on fees. If I did BACS to the wise account first I probably would have paid £12.

Not sure why wise is always recommended.

I will try one more time and use bank transfer method next to see what the actual cost is. I couldnt do it this time because my bank account has a security measure where if you add a new payee, you cannot send money to it for 2 hours.

 

[DontAsk]

No fees, but I use it for being paid.

I hadn't considered that they charge fees for sending, but it's all here https://wise.com/gb/pricing/send-money

Sending $970 costs £3.50 from Wise GBP balance, £3.72 bank transfer, £8.59 debit card, £20.54 credit card.

 

[Karimbo]

No fees, but I use it for being paid.

I hadn't considered that they charge fees for sending, but it's all here https://wise.com/gb/pricing/send-money

Sending $970 costs £3.50 from Wise GBP balance, £3.72 bank transfer, £8.59 debit card, £20.54 credit card.

Yeah, there wouldn't be any fees for recipient, the sender pays for it.

My fees were £17 because I used a business debit card. Usually payment processors charge more for business debit than personal debit cards.

I'll sort things out so in future I can do bank transfer. Was in rush to get the payment made before the Chinese supplier closes for the day.

 

[Karimbo]

Bank transfer fee was better but not as good as headline rate. Because I was sending USD to hong kong (a non USD country) they said there are more interchange fees

For sending £750.59 (worth of USD) they charged me £5.80 fee

 

[Karimbo]

Sending £814 cost me £9.99 in fees. I didnt get spot rates either. 1GBP was 1.34USD and I got 1.3366usd

It took between 3-4 hours for the china supplier to receive the money

I think wise is still being promoted due to previous reputation of instant transfer and rock bottom fees. Now that wise has conered the market and still has positive reviews from the past. It's increased the costs and reduce the service levels. In the past as soon as you approve the transfer, they'd release funds from the local bank to the recpient and work out all the transfer complications in the background. Now they are following the trail all the way to the customer before they release the funds.

I did have better experience the revolut. Immediate transfer, flat £5 fee. I dont know how revolut is like at the moment. I didn't like the standing charge of £10 a month banking fee so I closed revolut.

The delay in transfer might not seem like a big deal with some. But working around christmas and chinese new year. I need to get ordered paid for immediately so the supplier can send the order for production same day. If there is a 4 hour funds transmit time it might mean they will wait until the next day to send the order through.

I ususally get my PO from supplier around 9AM (around 1AM UK time). As soon as I receive it I send them the money. It's nice and early enough in the morning for them they they probably get cracked the same day. If the funds arrrive at 2pm. They might be too late in the day to order parts from their suppliers to make my order.

 

[AmazonGeek]

I use Airwallex for receiving money in different currencies and then transfer it to Halo for free. If I then use the Halo account to exchange money, I get very close to the bank rate and then there are no fees to make a payment.

e.g. I receive Euros for my Amazon EU sales into Airwallex. I then transfer them to Halo. I then buy USD using my euros and send them to my supplier in China, with no fees.