I was thinking of topping up the Revolut card using a bank transfer using TW. I guess this would work too?

You could do that, but you will pay a small fee since it would have to be in GBP.

Many thanks for your help. Its complicated, but at least I am clear on what to do now.

Made a chunky UBS EUR to my own TW GBP account today.
TW fee was 0.29% of the EUR sum.

Pleased with that. I don't dare to imagine what UBS would have charged for that fx transaction.

I regularly do a monthly from CHF-GBP using currency fair. I believe it's £2 or so per transaction. Depending on how much you transfer, that's usually sub 0.05% for me.

I've not heard of currencyfair. I went to their website to take a look at their fees, which on the surface look quite low. Comparing them to another site or two, it seems their fee is low but their exchange rate is not as competitive to make up for it.

I haven't compared them to TW in a year or two, they were pretty competitive then... I may need to check again.

One thing with CF which I like is you can set the exchange rate you want - and when someone on the other side wants the same rate, it matches them. So if I wanted CHF:GBP at 1:1, I could put that in and ask for that and see it it's matched.

Real time comparison

TransferWise



CurrencyFair

These are possibly totally noob questions, so I apologize in advance.

I'd like to set up an account with Transferwise but I'm too chicken to do it since I don't understand how it works.

1. I basically want to transfer from my personal Canadian account to my personal Swiss account. Is TW like an intermediary, or can I also use it as my own bank account (with a card?)? I would prefer to be able to transfer CAD to CAD or CAD to CHF, since I live in CH, and of course, I like the option of being able to use other currencies like Euro, pounds, etc, when I travel.

2. How can the money end up in the bank I pay all my bills from?

3. Do they care about one's citizenship(s)?


Thank you!

Cheers

I will have a go and answering some.

If you just use TW as is, then its an intermediary. You send money in one currency and it will throw out which ever currency you want into the desired account.

If you set up TW as a borderless account, yes you can use it as a bank account. So you can load CAD on there and spend CAD. You can load CAD on there and as required move amounts to CHF and spend CHF or of course any currency you choose.

Its interesting for card payments. For withdrawing cash from a machine, there is a limit which you can make while it being free, after that you'll pay a fee to withdraw.

Some currencies it will allow you to receive payments from third parties/persons. CHF I dont think is one of them. All currencies you can receive payments or transfers from banks in your own name.

For question 2, the money ends up where you want it, when you tell it to be there. Some are quicker than others. CHF I usually have a working day delay, for pounds its instant and Euro within a few hours.

Question 3 I have no idea about. I assume they dont care, just as long as you are who you tell them you are. But dont know for sure

I think to set up the account takes 20 CHF (or Dollars I suppose), theres not much risk moving 20 bucks around and seeing if it works for you