
TransferWise announces $280M investment - alexee
https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/transferwise-280-million/?ncid=mobilenavtrend
======
a_d
I used to study remittance flows for a living. This was a problem that was
(is?) begging to be solved. Incumbents like Western Union have always been
very expensive and borderline evil. There are well known “corridors” of
remittance flows that are still yet to be captured - like Kerala (India) <>
Saudi Arabia (Middle-east more generally); Mexico <> US; US <> LatAm etc.

My guess is TransferWise captured the UK<> Poland corridor and expanded from
there.

This problem is a great one to solve because the customers have a real pain
and one can be very targeted about capturing high-value corridors.

I wish TW the best. Lower fee, Lower friction, Lesser time == Great for
customers!

Anyone looking to build a startup in this domain should start here:
[http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/migrationremittancesdiaspo...](http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/migrationremittancesdiasporaissues/brief/migration-
remittances-data)

(This data is useful to understand origin<>destination of remittance flows;
Its a greater than $150B market and a lot of untapped/Uncaptured areas; lots
still left to do!)

~~~
dovdovdov
It's clearly a service mostly depending on eastern (central) european migrants
working in the UK.

I wonder if brexit doesn't fall through what will it do to their single leg
business.

And even if brexit fails, these people will become less and less dependent of
their home country. (moving close family to the uk, paying off mortgages)

So yeah, my point is these untapped areas can dry off quick. (I'm talking a
decade maybe)

Or there are stupid investors who don't want to invest into this no-brainer
goldmine. :)

~~~
Dobbs
I use transferwise for US => UK. It also seems to be the most widely
recommended of the services in the expat community.

------
Fizzer
I recently had a client ask me to pay them with Transferwise. It was a
horrible experience. After weeks of trying to get it to work, even with the
help of support, we eventually gave up and used bitcoin instead.

The Transferwise website was horrible. It gave error messages and kept telling
me to fill out some field that didn't exist. After sending screenshots to
their support team, they just sent me back links that didn't work.

After several back-and-forths with support they eventually fixed that issue,
but then on a later step the website told me to upload "the documents" and
gave an upload control. I carefully read every piece of text on the website,
and nowhere did it explain what documents it was asking me to upload. It
wouldn't let me proceed until I uploaded "the documents". I sent screenshots
of all this to the support team and they didn't know what documents I was
supposed to upload either.

Eventually support helped me fix that, and I got to a later step, where it
asked me for the username and password I use to log into my bank. I am not
comfortable providing this to anyone, so I refused. This was the last straw
that finally led to me giving up at using Transferwise.

~~~
Improvotter
Username and password for you bank account? Ough, what a big no no.

~~~
tonyhb
I'm pretty sure they use plaid for verification, who also do this. It's for
instant verification; you can choose to do the old school two-deposit
verification too.

------
TorKlingberg
As a customer, I love TransferWise. The banks charge outrageous rates and
fees. The competing money transfer/currency services promise the best rates,
but make you sign up before telling you. Then you get constant calls from your
"personal currency advisor". In the end you find out their rates are higher,
and now you're on call with a sales person. This includes companies HN posters
in a previous thread were recommending. TransferWise is upfront and self-
service. The one time I had to email support they were great too.

On the business side, TransferWise tells an interesting story about peer-to-
peer currency exchange, but I think that's a media play. In practice most
transfers will not immediately match with reverse flow. TransferWise have to
keep a buffer of each currency and trade on the open market, just like the
banks do. That in turn exposes them to currency risks, and it wouldn't
surprise me if they lost a lot of money on 24 June 2016. As a VC funded
startup they could eat that as a learning cost.

~~~
patio11
I think you're entirely right on the media thing. I've used them on JP->US and
US->JP over the years as my sources of income and expense destinations have
shifted around. They're pretty brilliant, but it's clear that they're just
buying dollars from UFJ (who has a _lot_ of dollars to sell) at a rate better
than the one UFJ would quote me.

Which is fine! It does exactly what it says on the tin.

------
seanalltogether
Transferwise has been a godsend for me the past couple years as I've been
moving my life to the UK from the US. XE was bought out awhile ago and hiked
their fees up, while banks like HSBC have always had high rates to begin with.

Although I'm wondering if jumping on a bitcoin exchange like GDAX to go from
USD -> bitcoin -> GBP would be even cheaper these days?

~~~
phillc73
Just to add another data point, TransferWise have been the single most useful
financial service for me over the last three years.

In 2000 I moved from Australia to the UK. Transferring money between AUD and
GBP accounts was always a bit painful. The banks charged too much and took too
long. I even signed up with a dedicated forex trading firm, but at the time
they did not offer an online service, so there was still enough friction with
phone/email to limit my use.

Three years ago I moved to Central Europe and acquired a EUR account. Soon
after I discovered TransferWise and have used it regularly ever since. It
works, it's cheap and it's fast.

~~~
neximo64
Its amazing they can transfer to the UK within the same minute now.

------
cprecioso
For everyone that's interested in TransferWise, I'd recommend Revolut (
[https://www.revolut.com/](https://www.revolut.com/) ) instead.

They have no fees for transactions or currency changes (up to a quite high
limit), as well with a lot more features (international prepaid MasterCard
that charges no fees ever being my favourite one, and you can go to ATMs for
free as well).

I've been a happy customer of them for quite some time and I have absolutely
nothing bad to say about them, but the opposite.

~~~
phillc73
Thought I'd give these guys a chance. Your brief write up piqued my interest.

Their website says, give us your phone number and we'll send you a link to
download the app. I'm thinking this is great, a direct APK download and no
Google Play Store interference, they just want to protect the download link a
bit. I enter my phone number.

I receive my SMS with the download link
([http://revolut.com/get](http://revolut.com/get)). Not being an https link is
a bit shoddy from a financial service. I load this page in my phone's browser.
It appears to just be the homepage again. I click the "Get the App" link again
and........ I'm redirected to Google Play Store.

They've no chance of my custom now. N26 was the same. Why won't these
organisations at least offer a direct APK download from their own
infrastructure?

~~~
thenomad
Because they'd have to talk users through allowing direct APK installs,
complete with all the scary warnings.

That's going to reduce the number of customers they get a lot more than a
redirect to the Play Store.

~~~
phillc73
How about a choice of Google Play Store or direct download, for "Advanced"
users? That's all I'm asking, just a tiny little 8pt font link to directly
download the APK.

~~~
yladiz
Why would a business host a APK directly when they can just utilize Google's
infrastructure for free? Likely you would have a lot of users mistakingly
download the APK if they saw the link and get confused as to why it's not
working like all their other apps, whereas downloading from Google Play Store
works seamlessly.

~~~
phillc73
Then host the APK on GitHub. They don't have to host source there as well. And
I'm sure they can design a page in such a way that only the more technical
potential customers go for the direct download.

It's also rather ridiculous that these services are
accessible/usable/activated only via an installed app on my phone or tablet.
Just make the service available via my web browser and the issue is resolved.

In the end I just don't bother with these services - N26, Monzo and now
Revolut. I'll just stick with TransferWise.

------
rglover
Literally just used TW to pay an international contractor in ~30 seconds. From
a customer standpoint, this is great news. Well wishes to these folks.

------
mabbo
I'm now paid in USD, but I live in Canada. My bank offered me the
'competitive' exchange rates of 2.5% more than the market offered.

TransferWise is literally saving me thousands of dollars per year. I can't
thank them enough.

~~~
devman
I am in a very similar situation (outrageous exchange rates from by Canadian
bank). Do you use TransferWise to transfer between your own accounts in a
Canadian bank or from your US bank to your Canadian bank?

~~~
mabbo
US Bank account to a Canadian bank account. Sort of.

Because I'm an idiot, I'm still with RBC. They have a US subsidiary bank
called "rbcbank" with no physical locations. Same terrible RBC service, but in
America. They opened an account there for me. They offer very fast transfers
between the US account and Canada account, but at the stupid rates they offer.

ALl my money transfers via TW now.

------
alexee
I wish they would issue credit cards soon. Every time I pay with credit card
while travelling, my bank charges 1.5% for each transaction, in addition to
bad conversion rate.

~~~
tomseldon
If you're in the UK, have a look at Monzo. Not a credit card, but very useful
to use abroad. They don't charge a transaction fee when abroad, and the
currency conversion is tracked to the MasterCard rate (whereas other providers
tend to do card issuer + their own cut on top).

Result is it's very cheap to use abroad. :)

~~~
andy_ppp
They actually plan to start charging for this because ATMs charge them:

£200 free allowance per month, 3% charge for withdrawals thereafter everywhere
outside the UK

From here: [https://monzo.com/blog/2017/09/13/atm-fees-
abroad/](https://monzo.com/blog/2017/09/13/atm-fees-abroad/)

I would have just transparently passed on whatever the ATM charges rather than
this weird 3% fee.

~~~
mcjiggerlog
I'm a Monzo user and really unhappy to find this out. I spend most of my time
in mainland Europe and the free transactions and no ATM fees are the only
reason I am a user.

Can anyone comment on how Revolut compares? One pain point is that I always
get asked if I want to pay in GBP or EUR, or even the cashier selects without
asking me, in which case I get massively ripped off if they select GBP. With
Revolut will the card look like a EUR card whilst travelling in the Eurozone?

~~~
chris_overseas
I just used a Revolut card during a two week trip around Iceland. It worked
fantastically well. Iceland's interesting as some places charge in Krona, some
in Euro, but in either case I was charged the live mid-market rate to the GBP
with no extra spread or fees.

You're also allowed to withdraw roughly £200/month worth of cash (any
supported currency) without any fees. Beyond that there is a charge, I can't
remember how much offhand but it's not too crazy.

The one problem I had with the card was at their petrol stations. Most are
self-service and require the card to be pre-authed before the fuel will start
being pumped. Revolut doesn't support this so I had to use another card or
find stations where I could pay in store.

~~~
cjrp
Same problem with petrol stations in the USA. Most were pay-at-pump and didn't
accept the card.

------
thijsvandien
TransferWise has saved me a _lot_ of money over the last couple of years. The
website has gotten worse I must say but otherwise their service has been
nothing but satisfactory. I'm still hoping they'll offer a credit or debit
card to make it possible to pay in foreign currency on the spot without paying
horrific conversion fees.

~~~
Tijdreiziger
Revolut provides this service.

(disclaimer: I haven't used Revolut yet and thus can't vouch for them)

------
fapjacks
TransferWise held up a few thousand dollars I was sending to a friend in
Europe who had been stranded. It wasn't like they just didn't send it for 24
hours, it took TransferWise _three weeks_ to make whatever determination they
were going to make, and cancel the transfer instead of sending it to my
friend. They also made some incredibly bizarre accusation when canceling the
transfer, that they believed the money was for "contraband" (drugs? guns?
TransferWise didn't say). Considering my friend is the youth pastor in my
hometown, well... So I'm not sure where TransferWise got their information,
but there you have it: They held my money for three weeks before canceling the
transfer for incredibly dubious reasons.

~~~
yladiz
To be fair, if you were sending it within/from the US, they have to deal with
a lot of AML/KYC laws (and it's similar in Europe), so their system probably
flagged it automatically, especially if you were a new customer or had little
interaction with the platform previously. It would likely happen at a bigger
bank as well. It absolutely shouldn't have taken three weeks before getting it
sent or not, but they likely wanted to cover their ass in the case it actually
was for "contraband".

------
Androider
Hopefully they can use some of that dough to improve their support.

I've been trying to do a business (US) to business (EU) transfer using
TransferWise for the last few days and it's been a nightmare. First they can't
accept an ACH payment, then they cannot match the wire transfer to my business
account, support doesn't answer, their automated "Action Required" emails have
links to help topics that don't exist and their phone support can't do
anything and asks you to email them instead, with the emails never receiving
any kind of acknowledgement.

Maybe it works fine for sending your friend a fiver, for business use it's a
total fail so far.

------
d--b
These guys are the best!

I've used transferwise to move dollars into euros the day before Brexit. They
could not ship the money in time because of the overall transaction volume,
and so they offered me the best of the rate I had locked in and the market
rate after Brexit!

------
mottomotto
I hope TW uses some of the money to build out recurring payments. That is the
biggest thing stopping me from using it for B2B payments (think SaaS product
with monthly billing). If there are workarounds, would be happy to hear.

------
satanic_pope
I generally goto remitrate to check best rates offered today :
[http://www.remitrate.com/best-exchange-rates/compare-USD-
to-...](http://www.remitrate.com/best-exchange-rates/compare-USD-to-INR)

In my experience, Transferwise has been one of the most expensive ones if not
the most expensive. Folks at remitly, ria almost always offer better rates
compared to Transferwise (atleast on two occasions when I was sending it)

I would at some point want to give them a try though.

------
monkeydust
no surprise. good product. just trying out their borderless account for
EUR->GBP. A fair whack cheaper than transferring into my Natwest account.

------
itissid
I can send rupees to my indian bank account at a very competitive rate from
the US. But getting it back means going through the bank's FX system which
marks it up by ~3%. Are there FX brokers to which I can route money from my
Indian bank account so that I will not be charged the 3% rate for the
subsequent INR->USD conversion?

------
seem_2211
I use TransferWise a lot - I work in the US, but send money back to my NZ
account regularly. I sent some money last night and it took 2 hours to show
up. Can't recommend TransferWise highly enough!

------
graniter
I don't understand what TransferWise offers beyond what PayPal does. Why not
just send yourself money using 2 PayPal accounts? Are they cheaper or faster?

~~~
dboreham
You might also consider "more legal" as a factor. I don't believe PayPal wants
you to have two accounts with different currencies.

~~~
graniter
Ok. But what would be the problem? If you legitimately have two bank accounts
in two countries in two different denominations, what's the problem with
having two different PayPal accounts connected to the different bank accounts?
I don't know what would be illegal about that.

~~~
dboreham
It would correlate strongly with people trying to evade taxes and/or launder
money. PayPal doesn't like to facilitate illegal activity. I'm not theorizing
about this -- I have first hand knowledge.

~~~
graniter
Ok I am not trying to be dense. I really am curious. Maybe it correlates
strongly, but there's nothing dishonest or illegal about it that I can tell.
PayPal has all your personal info. They have your bank account info on both
sides. People transfer money between. So maybe it's a pattern that money
launderers use, but so do regular people. What am I missing?

~~~
bckygldstn
PayPal isn't obliged to accommodate all legal banking patterns.

If 1% of all customers are fraudulent but 5% of customers with multi-country
bank accounts are fraudulent, that might be enough to tip their risk/reward
balance.

And I've dealt with this first hand. I have paypal accounts and legal bank
accounts in multiple countries, and when I've tried to move money between them
I get a call from customer service saying they blocked the transactions, and
"you're not supposed to do that with paypal".

------
stale2002
Obligatory "But what if you just used Bitcoin!"

------
autopoiesis
Can anyone say how TransferWise compares to CurrencyFair?

~~~
lgbr
I've found TransferWise to be slightly more expensive than CurrencyFair,
however TransferWise is capable of US <-> EU transfers in both directions,
whereas CurrencyFair can only handle EU -> US (I believe because CurrencyFair
does not yet have a presence in the US).

------
monkeydust
Also for holiday money where I need a card I use www.weswap.com - great
product.

------
leemike
I believe, With a brokerage account, it's easy to get your foreign currency
sent to a bank account in another country.

~~~
alexee
to your account yes, but not if you want to send money to your friend or
employee.

