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Show HN: I built a site to compare fees and rates for sending money abroad

79 pointsby Ruleroover 5 years ago

39 comments

d--bover 5 years ago
Bottom line: they&#x27;re all kind of the same, except TransferWise is generally better... Plus they&#x27;re customer service is _awesome_. I&#x27;m not a TransferWise employee or shareholder, but been using the service since the start, and been blown away by the quality of service.<p>My story is that I made a big transfer (400k+) on the day before the Brexit vote (cause I thought that Brexit wouldn&#x27;t happen, and the pound would bounce back). Because of the trading volume on that day, TransferWise missed the deadline. So I got in touch with them, they told me that they would give me the best rate between the one that I had locked in and the live market rate the next day. Basically I didn&#x27;t lose 10k+ because they&#x27;re decent guys.
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ivanstojicover 5 years ago
USA to HRK, only one option - transferwise.<p>Are you sure you didn&#x27;t build a transferwise clickbait? I know for a fact there are other services that do this transfer.
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dmlorenzettiover 5 years ago
A few minor UI comments.<p>+ Failing to select an amount to send should raise a flag.<p>+ Entering a negative amount to send should raise a flag.<p>+ After viewing a result, if I hit `back` on my browser (say, to compare results for a different transfer amount), it resets the currencies to their defaults (for me, U.S. and Argentina). It would be nicer to remember my selections.
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wwsculleyover 5 years ago
What inspired you to build this site? Who is your target customer?<p>I ask because I love the idea of building a search engine for payments, given how fragmented and localized the money-transfer market is.<p>Also, I&#x27;m familiar with a few sites that are similar: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.monito.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.monito.com&#x2F;</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fxcompared.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fxcompared.com&#x2F;</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saveonsend.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.saveonsend.com&#x2F;</a><p>I&#x27;m curious about what gap in these services you&#x27;re hoping to fill.
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throwaway9d0291over 5 years ago
Two issues that I see as someone who frequently sends money abroad:<p>- I live in a country where Revolut is available so I generally pay nothing for international transfers. Perhaps this could be addressed by adding &quot;country of residence&quot;?<p>- When I need to transfer money between my own accounts, I often use my Interactive Brokers account as it gives market rate conversions and a free transfer every month. It has inactivity fees but if you happen to keep a large amount of money there, it&#x27;s &quot;free&quot;.
solarengineerover 5 years ago
1. You may want to invite suggestions via the website itself so that visitors don&#x27;t get the wrong impression that you&#x27;re just some affiliate for transferwise.<p>2. consider publishing a roadmap that you update with suggestions from this HN discussion.<p>3. Some way to report errors or surprises via the web site itself.<p>4. A disclaimer that you are not vouching for any agency that you are mentioning at your website.
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jscholesover 5 years ago
Love this idea. I&#x27;m currently looking for a way to be sent money from Mexico (to the UK), and was disappointed that the site currently had no suggestions. On that note, it&#x27;s probably better to show an error message instead of an empty table when that happens.<p>I also have some accessibility suggestions; if you&#x27;re looking to improve things on that front hit me up.
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axaxsover 5 years ago
This seems heavily weighted reliant on transferwise. I picked a combo where I&#x27;m familiar with the many options, and it only listed Transferwise. Stopping short of making unsavory correlations here, I&#x27;ll just say you should research adding more options before advertising it.
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davchanaover 5 years ago
About, FAQ, Contact links are not working..
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srameshcover 5 years ago
This is great !! You should target the expats from each country in US and that will help you a lot in understanding how to market. There are some sites which are popular in certain expat communities, like sulekha.com for Indian expats, where you could advertise. This is a common problem for many people and this could certainly become a must tool before every transfer. I have bookmarked it for further transfers :)
jasongrishkoffover 5 years ago
Your data for Transferwise seems to assume the worst-case scenario of fees with a wire transfer. For example, you say US$100 to GBP nets $6.85 in fees.<p>But looking right now from my dashboard, if I send with my balnace, the fee is $1.18. With ACH its&#x27; $1.73. With credit card it&#x27;s $4.81. With debit card it&#x27;s $2.27. The worst and most-cumbersom option is wire transfer, but that&#x27;s what your system defaults too?
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shartshooterover 5 years ago
Remitly has been a great resource for sending money abroad, I&#x27;d love to see that included but it looks like they don&#x27;t have an API
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kdlmmover 5 years ago
TransferWise has a dedicated team working on a pretty similar tool to compare fees and rates for sending money abroad. They have a lot of banks and other fintech companies: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;transferwise.com&#x2F;gb&#x2F;compare&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;transferwise.com&#x2F;gb&#x2F;compare&#x2F;</a><p>Are you just using their data and adding your affiliate link to it?
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alexpetraliaover 5 years ago
I would highly recommend Interactive Brokers! You trade on the spot market and avoid all the fees except a $2 flat trading fee.
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anotheryouover 5 years ago
There was one interesting alternative way to send money through a network of some honest man. For some I believe middle-eastern countries it at least used to be the only way. Does anyone know what that was? I got told by a film crew that found this to be the only way. It all worked out for them.
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jlizzle30over 5 years ago
This is great! Would have definitely help me out when I moved to the US.<p>People don&#x27;t realize the fees banks charge for currency conversion is not the entire story. My bank offered me &#x27;no-fee&#x27; CAD to USD transfers but were giving me a 5% worse exchange rate than competitors. Be careful out there!
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altmindover 5 years ago
No Russia, Ukraine, Belarus in the countries list. Obviously, they have at least western union and moneygram.
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MuffinFlavoredover 5 years ago
Was the entire idea behind Libra (from Facebook) that the entire &quot;sending money abroad&quot; market would get revolutionized over night? (Faster, less fees, less regulations, easier to do?)
dgudkovover 5 years ago
I like the concept. Looking forward to see more countries and services.
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jermaustin1over 5 years ago
US to UK returned no results. US to ARG returned only transferwise.
jes81over 5 years ago
Interesting concept, I was chewing on something similar a few months ago and excited to see someone put this into action. Looking forward to following your growth. - JS
mariushnover 5 years ago
Would love to see a similar listing for bank fees on transfers. Some banks have free transfers, others charge a fixed sum, others charge a percentage.
wglbover 5 years ago
Missing a pretty substantial player: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sendwave.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sendwave.com&#x2F;</a>
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arsover 5 years ago
Bug report: When you hit back after looking at a quote, it puts the countries back at the default of Argentina.
trance1100over 5 years ago
You should verify that the amount entered is not a negative number. Noticed that it took those in.
Sschellbachover 5 years ago
Is bitcoin an option worth comparing
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maz1bover 5 years ago
This is a cool idea! US &gt; Pakistan doesn&#x27;t work. US &gt; India took quite a while too.
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pighiveover 5 years ago
USD to INR results only two quotes.
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arisAlexisover 5 years ago
there is a good one, cheap borderless and you don&#x27;t need a &quot;provider&quot;
ddtaylorover 5 years ago
Would you consider adding cryptocurrency exchanges as an option?
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html5webover 5 years ago
Add all countries that are available in the APIs you are using.
pgtover 5 years ago
&quot;Enter amount, e.g. 2500&quot; &lt;- What currency is this?
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kochikameover 5 years ago
Why are some major countries e.g. Japan not represented?
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astroslothover 5 years ago
What&#x27;s the difference between this and Transferwise
chipuniover 5 years ago
Only one result for US to Mexico?<p>You should look at other companies...
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sarpover 5 years ago
I don&#x27;t see Turkey on the list :(
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Havocover 5 years ago
Please add Xendpay (for GBP to ZAR)
nikolayover 5 years ago
Please, add Bulgaria, too!
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orangetangover 5 years ago
Need the hawala option!