Money transfers and bank accounts

[DTMark 6,888]

I receive money into an account in the UK and live in Italy.

I have a Transferwise account with two "current accounts", one in STG - the personal account - and the other in EUR - the business account.

They both have debit cards. I can move money between them and pay people in any currency.

This has proven immensely useful and is the mechanism by which I pay the rent.

However having been royally f***ed over by Transferwise I urgently need an alternative which does basically the same thing.

Any suggestions?

[Inigo 1,167]

21 hours ago, DTMark said:

I receive money into an account in the UK and live in Italy.

I have a Transferwise account with two "current accounts", one in STG - the personal account - and the other in EUR - the business account.

They both have debit cards. I can move money between them and pay people in any currency.

This has proven immensely useful and is the mechanism by which I pay the rent.

However having been royally f***ed over by Transferwise I urgently need an alternative which does basically the same thing.

Any suggestions?

Revolut?

I've just signed up for it, same thing, essentially.

[DTMark 6,888]

7 minutes ago, Inigo said:

Revolut?

I've just signed up for it, same thing, essentially.

Looks promising - thanks.

[Andersen 1,841]

Nothing helpful to add but can you let us know what the Transferwise problem was (or by PM) ? 

I'm looking for something similar to move funds between £/Euro and a few people have recommended Transferwise. Also heard good things about Revolut last year when I was looking.

Hope you get sorted 

[DTMark 6,888]

I have (shortly to be "had") a personal and a business account.

I instructed a payment to one of my suppliers on 21st Feb.

The screen confirmed success - it's not the first time I've paid them this way - and the fee was deducted from the account along with the amount.

Three days later on the 24th I got a somewhat stroppy email telling me the transfer was not in fact sent because they need extra ID. With a list of the ID to be provided else the account would be closed within one day.

Since the invoice was now late for payment I paid from another account.

I told Transferwise not to proceed with the transfer and that I agreed the account should be closed, and to feel free to put the money back into my personal account.

When it didn't arrive I queried this. Apparently they're waiting for the money to be returned. Odd, since it didn't go anywhere.

They clarified. They're waiting for "their bank to return it".

So they think it reasonable to borrow my money without asking until they can reconcile this internally. Their relationship with their bank and how they manage the failed transfer has nothing to do with me.

There is no timescale for the return of the money. They were optimistic it would happen last Friday. Then advised it can take 5 business days.

Today is day nine since I instructed the transfer and they still haven't paid back the loan nor have they stated when they will do so.

This might be unusual but demonstrates that they feel entitled to borrow money from their customers without asking, for an indefinite and unspecified period of time, free of charge when it's convenient to them.

Thankfully it wasn't a high value, time-critical payment for something like a house purchase.

[Inigo 1,167]

Neither Transferwise nor Revolut have a UK banking license, so cash held with them is not covered by the £85k guarantee.  I think they both have European banking licenses, but cover is less/different.

I use our high street bank for currency payments for work.  We get 2-3 calls a day offering a "cheaper" foreign currency payments service, so, presumably there is plenty of profit.  I did once make a payment using one of these other services and had a few nights bad sleep while the payment wandered around the system on its way to my suppliers account.  I have resolved to stick with our high street bank - at least they give me online access to their dealing desk so I can get a realtime idea of exchange rates.  Previous bank (a long time ago) would ask me to make request via fax and they would confirm rate within 24 hours - always to our detriment.  If rates were improving, we'd get an immediate answer, if they were detoeriorating, we'd get an answer at a much worse rate the following day.

[Wight Flight 34,209]

I use FairFX and have done for years.

Works well for me.

[DTMark 6,888]

Instructed transfer from Transferwise on 21st February. They didn't make the transfer. I had to pay this another way.

Transferwise have had a little over £200 of my funds since then.

The money has been put back in my Transferwise account but then the next nightmare begins. It can't be transferred out, nor anywhere, until they have "verified my ID".

Here we are on the 10th March and there is still no sign of anything progressing.

All transfers in to Transferwise were bank transfers. If they had been Direct Debits I'd have got onto my bank by now to void one or more of them to get my money back that way "by force".

I'm now looking at taking legal action to sue them for the return of the money.

There are two Transferwise accounts - one personal, with my UK address and one business with my Italian address.

This pertains to the Italian account.

Does this mean I have to sue them from and in Italy?

[DTMark 6,888]

Hurrah. 19 days later I have received the money back into my bank account.

Revolut looks fine - very similar, albeit their web interface is a bit limited, meaning that to set up transfer instructions I can't just copy and paste on my desktop but have to type them into the app manually.

OK, I could copy and paste on there but my fingers are too fat and my accuracy with the little keyboard is too poor.

It has some other quite interesting features too - thanks for the tip.

[nirvana 3,425]

ofx to xfer to froggy bank from uk bank

uk debit card to xfer to revolut and n26 (kraut bank)

I can do free xfers from frog bank to kraut bank

[DTMark 6,888]

On 02/03/2021 at 11:04, Inigo said:

Revolut?

I've just signed up for it, same thing, essentially.

Have you ever tried getting any assistance from them?

The only method of contact seems to be an in-app chat thing.

Which is more like email since nobody gets around to looking at your question for two hours.

At which point you've "gone offline" and you then get a standard reply: "It looks like you're not available to talk right now."

Well, no. I haven't sat here for two hours staring at and repeatedly tapping the screen on my mobile to keep the "chat" alive. Then a notification arrives asking you to "rate your experience". Back to the chat thing. "Did we answer your question?"

Well, no, you didn't reply. I click No. Round and around it goes.

So it's more like email except you have to actually wait for the other person to be available otherwise you get nowhere.

There's a paid subscription plan, but still no other means of contact.

So when my debit card got declined at the dentist the other day, there was literally nobody to speak to, and no way to do anything about it - it was just as well I had my UK debit card with me.

It keeps on getting declined online too, I think I'll just give up with it and push ahead with getting an Italian bank account.

[Inigo 1,167]

Oh, not good.  I haven't used it in anger yet for transactions outside the UK.  I think, like all these Fintech companies, if it works, it's fine, if it goes wrong, no chance in hell of getting it sorted out.

The level of service from UK high street banks is shockingly poor and yet these "disruptors" have managed to somehow surpass that and be even worse.

It took me so long to open a French bank account that the property I was trying to buy had been sold to someone else in the meantime.  I hope your experience with the Italian bank is better.  If you are planning on staying for a while, it probably makes the most sense and if you choose a larger one there should be local branches where you can actually talk to a human.