TransferWise is not a scam, just not good for what you were doing.

Still the best for me when sending gbp from UK & Over £2.5k

Below that other options are better

Gilly wrote: ↑Wed Sep 30, 2020 11:26 am ATM withdrawal 1000$US from ABA ATM costs me 9$ = 0.9% commission (no withdraw fee with revolut premium)

isn't revolut no withdrawal fee up to 400 per month with platinum? 2% after that



& Cambodia is not on the list to send money to

Edit: it think revolut is a great card to have, along with all of those types of cards (Monzo, Starling, N26 etc). But better for travelling & not living.

Also, if travelling it makes sense to have multiple to avoid the % that kicks in, and they're all free (revolut standard). Starling by far the best though

Starling (£300 a day)
Monzo (£200 a month)
Revolut (£200 a month)

We use Revolut while buzzing around Europe. It works well for us, but I've not used it in Cambodia yet. However, a few times now in the last two months, they've had problems with their systems which have left us relying on our regular bank cards.

Getting back to transfers-

The 2 Cambodian receiving banks that we have accounts with are ABA and Sacombank.
Complications that exist is how banks route money to between countries, enroute to Cambodia. Standard chartered being one intermediate bank. Charges of course occur at each stage.
Sending money from a UK bank to my Cambodian bank, I use 2 methods. Foreign exchange company called Foreign Currency Direct, and XE. There have been a few negative comments about the latter, but nothing substantive was then provided as corroboration.
I've used XE for quite a few transfers so far, and with no problems. In fact, they've been pretty damned quick.

To compare the 2 methods/companies, I'm simply interested in this-

Of the finds that I transfer out of my UK account, once the exchange rate is fixed and after all the fees, what % reaches the destination account. After that, the receiving fee at ABA has been a flat $10.

So far, for transfers of £1000-£2000, between leaving my UK account and arriving at ABA/Sacombank. Foreign Currency Direct- I receive about 96.1~96.2% of the original funds. XE, about 95.6%

For transfers around £2500, both methods achieve about 98.4%
For larger transfers still (£6-£7000), I've only used Foreign Currency direct, and received in excess of 99%

Smaller transfers, less than £700 really accentuates the losses, and I try to avoid those.
Theres not a lot of difference. XE is useful as it seems that it operates more on a 24hr basis, while the other company operates on regular business hours.

In the past, I've used WU a few times, but I'm not a big fan.