

Ask HN: How to pay developers in Europe? - DarkShikari

I just paid out the first quarter's profit shares for my startup, x264 LLC (commercial licensing arm of the x264 open source project).  However, the majority of the major developers for the project are in Europe, so the best way to pay them seems a bit less obvious.<p>This time I did:<p>1.  US developers: Mail a check.<p>2.  UK developers: Mail a check (their banks are apparently fine with this).<p>3.  Sweden/Germany/Austria/France: Wire transfer in native currency.<p>4.  Russia: Wire transfer in US dollars to a special account set up by the developer.<p>The problem with this is that the wire transfer prices charged by the bank (Bank of America) are exorbitant: not only is it $35 per transfer, but they slash off another 5% in the form of exchange rate gouging.  This latter will probably become a significant cost (~1-2% of <i>total income</i>) as income rises.<p>Is there any better option for international payments in the ~$500-$25000 range?
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JonnieCache
Western union is definitely less than what you're quoting there from BoA.

A general tip in this area is to find out what immigrants use to send money
home. You can be pretty confident that they're getting a good deal.

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DarkShikari
Seems so!

Bank of America: 1 EUR = 1.5017 USD

Western Union: 1 EUR = 1.4590 USD

Google Finance: 1 EUR = 1.4429 USD

I'll try them for the next quarter.

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TillE
One way or another, you're probably going to want to set up an account of your
own in Europe and figure out the cheapest way to transfer large lumps of cash
into it.

At least in Germany, there's absolutely no charge to wire money to another
account in Europe, including the UK.

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markklarich
Remember, if you set up an account outside of the US, and its value equals or
exceeds $10,000 for even a moment during any year, you have to report it. Not
saying you shouldn't do it. But a word to the wise . . .

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xgMz
Use Citibank Global Transfers. I think this option requires opening a Citibank
account by both parties, but once done you can transfer to most countries in
the World, Mexico and India for Free and other places for $10 (less than a
third of BoA)…
[https://online.citibank.com/US/JRS/pands/detail.do?ID=InterC...](https://online.citibank.com/US/JRS/pands/detail.do?ID=InterCiti)

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gommm
The 35$ per transfer is normal, the 5% is not. It'll probably be cheaper to
send the money directly in USD without currency exchange, the european bank
will then deal with it and their rates are usually cheaper (at least for
french banks).

You can also maybe suggest to the people you work with to setup a USD account
with their bank. That's what I did with my bank in France, it was quite easy
and allows me to exchange all the payments from USD to Euros in one go.

Another services I've heard some good things of but haven't tested is Xe.com
Transfers [1] and Xoom [2]

[1] <http://www.xe.com/fx/> [2] <https://www.xoom.com/>

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vessenes
B of A is gouging you. Are you big enough to shop for another bank? You may
want to sit down with a VP of some competing banks, and take proposals, along
with checking out some of these other options here.

One issue you face is Patriot Act, anti-terrorism laws. These laws have made
it difficult for small / local banks to send international wires out to random
people all the time; they need to have a "Know your wiree" type policy in
place for everyone they're wiring. In your use case, since you sound like
you'll have common developers, this would be an upfront, but not permanent
problem. At any rate, I'd start by calling some Branch managers of large
regional - national banks, and see who wants your business.

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mkuhn
What about Paypal? It should allow you to move around money quite easily and
people can withdraw it to their accounts also relatively problem free.
Although I am not sure about the state of Paypal in all the countries you
mention.

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stevanl
I run a small startup in the UK (www.mycurrencytransfer.com) that helps people
compare currency transfers from different providers.

We've found specialist currency brokers such as Moneycorp, The FX Firm, IFX,
and World First, amongst others, offer more competitive rates than the banks.

They are what businesses tend to use when paying overseas suppliers, and
people purchasing properties overseas.

(Sorry for the "shameful plug", I just thought I'd chime in seeing as it
seemed appropriate)

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TamDenholm
I'm a UK developer and this is one of the reasons I very rarely accept work
from people not in the UK. I usually accept paypal for overseas payments
because even though the fees are ridiculous and I hate paypal, it actually
takes about the same time and fees to accept international payments this way
compared to a bank transfer. This however has the added benefit of being
better for my client that is making the payment as it costs them nothing
extra.

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dschobel
Check out <http://www.xe.com/>

I'm living in Australia at the moment and lots of people recommended them for
sending money abroad.

Not sure what the ramifications are for commercial purposes, but for changing
large amounts of currency for personal use they give a damned good rate. I'm a
BofA customer in the States and as you found, their rates are a joke.

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centdev
A US check being cashed in the UK or most places, can take a few weeks. We had
an office in West London, and the best way we found to pay our European team
was by bank wire. You may want to look into Ruesch International (now known as
Travelex Business). Might also be able to use them for other
Sweden/Germany/France and Russia as well.

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teamonkey
Also checks (or cheques) are being completely phased out in the UK. Hardly
anyone uses them. Direct bank transfer is cheaper, safer and clears much
faster.

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gexla
Take a look at an exchange service such as xe.com. Basically the way it works
is that you would do an ACH transfer to them and then they would do the
conversion and then transfer out to the requested bank account. These services
are supposed to give you the best conversion rates.

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NonEUCitizen
You can try Everbank www.everbank.com , which has World Currency accounts. It
is a US-based bank, but you can have a Euro account, from which you can do
wire transfers to Europe. Their conversion rates are good.

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markklarich
For smaller amounts, how about setting up an account in the US and getting a
debit card for the payee? Pay into the local account. They use the debit card.

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known
I believe _checks_ are safe and better for sender/receiver/govt

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henrikschroder
...for sending money to countries that still use them, yes.

Where I am, noone's been using checks for that past 20-30 years. In the rare
case you get one and wants to cash it in, there are exorbitant fees for doing
so, since it's so unusual.

