Transferwise vs Tranzfers – 7 Reasons Why I Made the Switch

This is a comparison of Transferwise vs Tranzfers for online international currency transfer. There are many different options for transferring money between countries. The one you choose will depend on your personal circumstance. You must consider things such as:

Which countries you are transferring between.
How much you are transferring.
How fast you need to transfer the money.
Your preferred payment method.

Transferwise vs Tranzfers

I was a loyal user of Tranzfers for close to 5 years, then the other day I switched to Transferwise. Here are my 7 reasons for switching from Tranzfers to Transferwise.

1. More Transfer Options

Transferwise allows me to deposit money using a debit card and ACH Bank Debit. There are more methods also but I wouldn’t use them. With Tranzfers I could only do it via bank transfer. Only allowing bank transfer gave me three problems.

Note: My US bank account is with Bank of America (BOA). Different banks have different terms for transfer, so check yours.

BOA charges $3USD to transfer to a non-BOA bank account within the US. It’s free to another BOA account, but Tranzfers doesn’t use BOA.
It takes 3 working days to make the transfer. You can do it faster but the fees are much higher.
I have a bank transfer limit of $1,000usd per transaction. This means that if I have to transfer more than this, I have to pay the fees again. I could transfer more if I got a security pin sent to me, but I don’t have a US phone number.

Being able to deposit the money to Transferwise using ACH Bank Debit or Debit card is faster and cheaper. Both are fee-free. ACH takes between 1-4 days (usually within 2) to get into Transferwise and has a $10,000 maximum transfer limit.

Using a debit card is instant (to get into Transferwise) but the limit is only $1,000usd per day. Also, you can only transfer a maximum of $4,000 per week.

2. Regulations

This is the thing that pushed me to make the swap. I was using Tranzfers fine for a few years, then one day the transfer didn’t complete. The computer flagged me because I was not in Australia while making the transfer. This was particularly frustrating because I was never in Australia before either. The computer decided that now was the time to flag me. They said that I would have to update my address every-time I lived somewhere new. A bit impractical for a traveler.

I asked them if I could use my Australian address on the computers record and leave it at that. They said it was okay, but if I did that I would have to make the transfers by phone. This is even more inconvenient than changing my address.

In hindsight, I could have said that I lived in Australia and don’t travel and that would have been that. I did try to back-peddle but the girl said they record the phone calls so it was too late.

In the end, I told the lady that it was too much hassle and that I would use a different service. Immediately after that, I made the transfer with Transferwise instead. It took under ten minutes, including new customer sign up and connecting my BOA account via ACH. It was a very smooth process and the transfer was complete the next day!

3. Transparent Fees and Rates

Tranzfers is a flat fee. The fee is $5USD, but it is different for different currencies, e.g., Transfering from AUD is 15AUD. Transferwise fees are a bit more complicated. They have a minimum fee for smaller transfers or a percentage of the transfer amount for larger ones. Also, it differs depending on the currency.

Transferwise works on a percentage and Tranzfers is a flat fee. This means that when you transfer larger amounts, Tranzfers is cheaper. This doesn’t take into account exchange fees though. Tranzfers also charges a margin (fee) by adjusting the exchange rate. Transferwise does not.

When it comes to figuring out your actual cost, Transferwise has a handy calculator. You enter the amount you want to transfer and they will tell you how much you will receive on the other end. This amount is GUARANTEED for 24 hours.

Tranzfers can give you an initial quote but they don’t guarantee it. The amount you actually receive depends on market fluctuation. This means you could get less or more than expected, but you will not know until it is complete. Don’t forget to take into account Tranzfers exchange margin and your banks transfer fees.

One advantage Tranzfers has is that you can choose when to make the transfer depending on the rate quote. I was often able to get an extra few dollars on my $800 – $1000USD transfers by waiting for a better rate. Is this final amount better than I would have got from Transferwise? It’s possible, but if it was, then it would only be a couple of dollars and not worth the extra hassle.

Ready to try out Transferwise? Click here for your FREE transfer.

4. Speed

Between BOA’s transfer time and the time it took for Tranzfers to put my money into Australia, it took about 5-7 days.

Transferwise has never taken more than 2 days for me, and this is with ACH. With a debit card, 2 working days would be the longest.

5. Minimum Transfer

Tranzfers has a higher minimum transfer. A$100, NZ$100 and £50.

The Transferwise minimum is $1.

6. Borderless Banking

Transferwise offers a service called Borderless Banking. Borderless Banking can give you a virtual bank account in different countries. It means you can get paid, or pay others, in the local currency. It saves you bank fees, and you can transfer more money between currencies with fewer limits.

Unfortunately for me, I receive a lot of USD. It means there are more restrictions.

The other thing is that there is no debit card. You can only pay out money with bank transfer or by withdrawing it to your bank account, which has a small fee. This means that, for me, it is more expensive. If I didn’t have a fee-free US Bank account then I would use Borderless Banking.

I imagine you can connect Paypal and similar services to it so that’s good. Soon they will introduce a debit card. When that happens I will give it another look.

7. Referral and Affiliate Rewards

The last reason I switched from Transferwise to Tranzfers is their referral program. With Tranzfers, if I referred a friend I would earn 1 point. 4 points would get me an iPod Nano and 25 points would get me a Mac Air. There is a range of things in-between also.

Transferwise on the other-hand pays your reward in cash. Also, they give your friends their first transfer free.

Claim Your FREE Transferwise Transfer Today!

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Did you find this Transferwise vs Tranzfers comparison useful? How do you usually transfer money overseas? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The post Transferwise vs Tranzfers – 7 Reasons Why I Made the Switch appeared first on Survive Travel.