A Simple Checklist to Speed Up Your International Money Transfers
If you find yourself googling ‘how to send money to…’ whenever you need to make a money transfer, then it’s time to rethink the way you send money.
Just like you have an exercising, meditation, or journaling routine, you can also establish a healthy discipline when it comes to sending money overseas.
It can help you achieve practical benefits such as saving money, getting money delivered faster, and saving time, but it can also give you more peace of mind and control when you make a money transfer.
Here is our simple checklist to help you improve your money transfer habits.
✔️ Eliminate delays
When you send money internationally, delivery times can be hard to predict. While domestic transfers are generally delivered the same day or even instantly, cross-border transfers hinge on a variety of factors that fall outside your control.
The sending and destination countries, the currency you transfer, the sending method (bank account, card, e-wallet, etc) affect delivery times in one way or another.
You can eliminate unexpected delays by choosing an instant money transfer platform - but the question is how do you know which ones are instant?
Some ways to tell when an international transfer will not be processed immediately are:
- transfers between bank accounts (these take around 3 days)
- foreign currency transfers
- Apps where you need to deposit money that is then released to the recipient.
How instant money transfers work and are they really instant
✔️ Control your costs
Exchange rates play a huge role in your total transfer cost. While you cannot fully eliminate currency exchange in an international money transfer, you can be mindful of currency exchange fluctuations and unnecessary currency conversions.
You can avoid the first (currency exchange fluctuations) by using an instant transfer service that transparently shows you (and actually locks in for you) the exchange rate for your transfer. With real-time transactions you can be sure you’re safe from daily currency fluctuations.
On the other hand, extra currency conversions (and hence the costs associated with them) can be avoided by selecting the right currency to send, depending on the sender and recipient currency. For example:
- Send PLN from the UK to Poland from your GBP account (instead of GBP)
- Send EUR from France to a EUR account in Ukraine (instead of UAH)
- etc
✔️ Go online, go mobile
Traditional money transfer methods (wire transfers or cash delivery), are both slow and expensive.
Sending online is not just faster, but it's also convenient as you can now send money in the evening, on weekends, or on holidays and you can still be sure it will be delivered immediately.
✔️ Keep your (currency) options open
Currency availability is surely one of the main criteria when selecting a money transfer solution.
Unfortunately, many services provide a limited selection of currencies and their availability may even be limited by regions (for example not allowing you to send USD outside the USA).
Having the option to send any currency from/to anywhere will help you save on exchange rates and have your transfer delivered faster.
How to send USD to USD and EUR to EUR internationally with Fin.do
✔️ Speed up frequent transfers
If you frequently send money to the same recipient abroad (maybe you regularly send money home), save your favorite transactions so you can easily repeat them with one tap and avoid entering the sender information every time.
Many money transfer apps today make it easy to save favorite transactions so you can save time on recurring transfers.
If you found these tips helpful, remember that improving your money transfer routine doesn’t have to turn into a tedious project but it can have a huge positive impact.
Just follow these simple steps until you’ve found the ideal money transfer app for your needs and you’ll be good to go!
