Whether you are immigrating to Australia permanently or planning a short-term stay, 485 Visa Insurance can help you save a significant amount of money when sending and receiving international money transfers.
Our preferred providers are substantially cheaper than the banks and you can compare them on everything from price to speed to service.
That depends on how much you are spending. For transactions under $200, TransferWise and is a good option because of their $1 minimum transaction size. For transactions between $200 and $10,000, TorFX is a great option because of their low fees. For transactions over $10,000 we recommend OFX because their fees are competitive at that price, plus they and a large, well established provider.
A transaction fee is a fixed administrative fee that is charged for sending and/or receiving an international money transfer.
Commission fees are like a transaction fee except that it is charged as a percentage of the transaction rather than a fixed fee.
The spread (also called a margin) is the difference between what the provider buys a currency for and what they sell it for.
Providers may charge any combination of commissions, flat transaction fees and a spread, so be sure to look carefully.
The fastest way to securely send money overseas is through Ripple. Ripple is a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, but unlike Bitcoin their transactions are fast, guaranteed and are fully compliant with anti money laundering laws.
FlashFX gives you the best of both worlds by allowing you to transfer money directly to a foreign bank account using ripple in under 5 minutes. Please note that Ripple transfers are not available to every bank, so please confirm with FlashFX before sending money.
Assuming your foreign exchange provider uses the Swift network, transactions usually take 1-2 days to hit the destination account. If they are using Ripple, transactions are usually complete in under 5 minutes.