Best Posts in Thread: great new money transfer service

When we are in the Philippines ourselves we use Transferwise to send to my wife's PI bank account, as it's better total return for every dollar you send. But we have been using Xoom for several years to send smaller amounts to relatives who either don't have bank accounts or who can't seem to get the correct account details to us. We've had very few issues, and the money is usually available to them almost instantly. Of course the exchange rate is terrible, but it doesn't hurt as much on the smaller transactions.
We did take advantage of the Remitly promo recently as it was an attractive deal. But be aware that the no fee promo with the great exchange rate was for their "standard" (slow) service. They tell you right away the date when the money will be transferred, which was about a week later. It worked fine, and the delay was no problem for us on this transaction. Have not yet tried their for fee service, but from what I hear it's comparable to Xoom.
Other than that, it seemed like Xoom and Remitly were comparable on the net for each dollar you send, with maybe a slight advantage to Remitly under some circumstances. I like having active accounts with all three services in case of emergencies.

 

The subject of which system of transferring money is best arises frequently, as one would expect, and I think people just like certain companies they feel comfortable with by previous experience.

But on a financial aspect, I do not believe the usual rate for Remitly is as good as Transferwise - although it may only be significant to most people for larger amounts. I would have liked to do a comparison for existing customers but Remitly's first page is showing an inflated conversion rate and a deflated fee (of zero) for new customers.