FWIW, where possible, I advise having both a TransferWise account and a Revolut or Interactive Brokers account.
TransferWise is fantastic for receiving money. They have local bank accounts in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD and PLN. However for sending money and converting money, their fees can really suck: for $10k USD -> EUR (EURUSD is one of the most liquid forex pairs), they charge 81 USD in fees, or %0.8. Even for local transfers (which should be free) they charge ~1 USD.
Revolut is kinda crap for receiving money (the only local accounts are EUR and GBP, the rest are GB IBANs) but sending and conversion are both free (conversion as long as the amount is <$6k/month). If you use it a lot, they have a ~$100/yr plan that gives you unlimited on both.
Interactive Brokers is literally useless for sending and receiving money (they only accept transactions to/from your own accounts) but they're fantastic for conversion. They process your orders directly against the forex market and charge ~1USD per trade for the kinds of trades we're talking about. The downside is that their minimum account balance is pretty high (~$6k IIRC) and they have a $10/month "inactivity" fee if your balance is below $100k and you generate <$10/month in commissions. That said, if you need a brokerage account anyway, their currency conversion is a great bonus.
And finally, Charles Schwab is great in the US. They charge minimal markup on deposits and withdrawals in foreign currencies (~0.5-1% depending on amount) and they have a debit visa card with no international transaction fees and Visa's exchange rate (~0.3% spread). They're not the best around but they're really great if you don't want to put your money in the hands of a less-regulated FinTech company that has minimal deposit guarantees.
The Interactive Brokers $10/month inactivity fee is (kinda) no more - they have a new product called IBKR Lite that has no minimum balance or maintenance fee, but still supports forex: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=45500
Am I correct in thinking that interactive brokers won't send from your brokerage account to someone else? If so I guess the process would be to send back to a Revolut account of yours in the target currency after conversion at IB and then send it to the recipient from Revolut /Transfer wise using a same currency transfer?
Is there somehow a way to receive with Transferwise and send with Revolut ? I guess not. Then how would it work having both ? Receive in Transferwise a bunch of payments, and once in a while send to your bank. Then once in a while send to revolut, and send smaller payments from there ?
Yes but the transfers between accounts can be fiddly. The options if I remember right are:
- All currencies: Top-up Revolut with the TransferWise debit card - this is free and IIRC works for all the currencies TransferWise supports receiving. However there are limits on both the TransferWise side (how much you can spend with the card) and the Revolut side (how much they permit you to top-up with a debit card). The latter limit increases as you use the card.
- EUR and GBP: Straight local bank transfer - costs ~$1 but only works for these two currencies.
- CHF: Local bank transfer as above - costs ~$1 but requires correctly entering the reference number.
- USD: SWIFT - costs ~$5 and takes around a week.
- AUD, NZD, PLN: Unsupported. Revolut only has a UK-based IBAN and TransferWise requires local account details for these currencies.
For Transferwise the "Borderless account" is much cheaper then the "Send money" option. I get a price of ~46USD when I convert 10K USD to EUR (instead of the 81 when using the "Send money" calculator: https://transferwise.com/no/pricing/
TransferWise is fantastic for receiving money. They have local bank accounts in USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD and PLN. However for sending money and converting money, their fees can really suck: for $10k USD -> EUR (EURUSD is one of the most liquid forex pairs), they charge 81 USD in fees, or %0.8. Even for local transfers (which should be free) they charge ~1 USD.
Revolut is kinda crap for receiving money (the only local accounts are EUR and GBP, the rest are GB IBANs) but sending and conversion are both free (conversion as long as the amount is <$6k/month). If you use it a lot, they have a ~$100/yr plan that gives you unlimited on both.
Interactive Brokers is literally useless for sending and receiving money (they only accept transactions to/from your own accounts) but they're fantastic for conversion. They process your orders directly against the forex market and charge ~1USD per trade for the kinds of trades we're talking about. The downside is that their minimum account balance is pretty high (~$6k IIRC) and they have a $10/month "inactivity" fee if your balance is below $100k and you generate <$10/month in commissions. That said, if you need a brokerage account anyway, their currency conversion is a great bonus.
And finally, Charles Schwab is great in the US. They charge minimal markup on deposits and withdrawals in foreign currencies (~0.5-1% depending on amount) and they have a debit visa card with no international transaction fees and Visa's exchange rate (~0.3% spread). They're not the best around but they're really great if you don't want to put your money in the hands of a less-regulated FinTech company that has minimal deposit guarantees.