Top Pick Money Transfers (2023)

These are our top choices in 2023 based on their worldwide footprints and all around excellence.

$7000 USD = Approx £4000, €6000, $10000 AUD, $10000 CAD, $10000 SGD 800,000 JPY,  500,000 INR

Choosing the best money transfer service for your needs is a balance between keeping costs low on one hand with online and offline service, speed and great customer support on the other.

Important Bits:

• Inexpensive or low cost options we highlight include ALL the fees (exchange rate margin, fixed fees and hidden fees 3rd party banks charge).
• Customer service can be critical for larger amounts but important for any service.
• Recommended services need to be trustworthy including being regulated in multiple counties with many safeguards.

This video with help to quickly explain many of the important bits.

Highly Recommended

With so many money transfer services to choose from you can find a service perfect for you needs.

Here are some alternatives to our top three recommendations which may be preferable.

Why are different services recommended for different amounts?

Almost every service and even all the comparison websites would have you believe that each is the best.
This is absolutely not the case, and we were the first to highlight this.

After using almost every service personally and reading thousands of reviews: It became clear that some services were aimed at smaller more regular amounts, often in cash or to mobile phones for family and friends back home. These are often referred to as remittances and there are many great (although often expensive) competitors in this space including Wester Union, Moneygram and Ria.

As soon as you can use a bank account to fund the transaction and ideally for receiving the money: Services like TransferWise and Currencyfair can dramatically reduce the costs you pay while providing a better service with excellent customer support online.

While these services can sometimes handle larger amounts, they are set up to handle smaller amounts. This means sign up is easy and there focus in on providing a great online experience. However due to anti-money laundering laws and counter terrorism laws as the amounts increase more ID is often required which can result in your account being frozen while you provide additional ID. This generally happens around the $7000 USD mark.

Meanwhile there are other services that are designed from the outset to handle larger amounts. They tend to ask for more ID up front which helps reduce frustrating frozen accounts.

But here is the kicker:

Services like OFX and TorFX have customer service teams that are easily available on the phone. This can be super important because as the amounts get above the $7000 USD mark the bank you are funding the transaction with, also has rules and limits on how they do things.

For example, we recently had to transfer more than $10,000 USD. After locking in a great exchange rate, I discovered the bank I want to use to fund the transaction had a limit of $10,000/day online (different banks have different limits). With many providers, cancelling the transfer (and possibly paying a fee) would be the only option. Rather than do this I called and they said, "no problem" and they simply created two transfers online with the same great exchange rate over two days. Everything happened automatically from there.

Moreover money transfer services designed for larger amounts reduce the fees you pay (in percentage terms) as the amounts increase.

So why not just use a service that can handle larger amounts for everything?

Services designed for amounts below about $7000 tend to have a great online experience and have easier sign-ups.

That is not all:

Because services designed for smaller amounts don’t need so many (expensive) customer service people they tend to be even cheaper. Ideally I would recommend choosing two different services and designed for the appropriate amounts.

How much will you save?

Service	Total Costs	Notes
Bank	2.0% to 6%	Banks usually charge fees fixed fees to fund transaction and to receive the funds
Old School Remittance Service	7 to 9%	Many factors vary the fees
New School Remittance Service	2.5 to 7%	Many factors vary the fees
Leading Service (amounts less than $7000 USD)	0.4% – 2%	Lowest fees are usually bank to bank
Leading Service (amounts more than $7000 USD)	0.4% – 2%	Lowest fees are bank to bank and reduce as amounts increase

You might like:

Check out the full reviews for WorldRemit, TransferWise and OFX.

Their comparisons can also be really helpful:

TransferWise VS Currencyfair

OFX VS TransferWise