International transfers, bitcoins and banks

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › International transfers, bitcoins and banks

lee2121

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#133429 22-Oct-2013 10:11

Hi,

I work for myself from home doing affiliate marketing meaning that my income spread across various bank accounts etc. The bulk of my money goes into my UK HSBC account since I can't transfer it directly into a NZ account.

I also have a PayPal account linked into this bank account.

The problem is when I need to transfer the money from UK to NZ I'm losing quite a bit of money due to transfer fees, currency conversions etc. Last transfer I had to pay $500 just to get my money.

I'm currently in the process of joining Kiwibank so I can hook another PayPal account into my NZ bank so I don't have to lose money on the international transfer.

But since the bulk of my money comes from my HSBC account I'm trying to figure out a cheaper way to get it into my NZ account.

I'm currently looking into Bitcoins as an option, does anyone know of a bank that would allow me to transfer Bitcoins into my account?

Has anyone tried converting money into Bitcoins from a foreign bank into a NZ bank? Did it work out cheaper?

Thanks

timmmay

20578 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#919571 22-Oct-2013 10:23

I've used http://www.currencyonline.com/ with good success a few times. Rates are better than the banks.

AidanS

458 posts

Ultimate Geek

#919572 22-Oct-2013 10:23

Forgive my ignorance but Kiwibank charge me $20 to send money overseas via an international direct credit. Why is this not the same the otherway around?

-Aidan.

lee2121

9 posts

Wannabe Geek

#919575 22-Oct-2013 10:25

I did have to pay a transfer fee of $64 but also I had to pay their currency rates meaning that I lost 5% of my money during the process which was $500.

Thanks for the http://www.currencyonline.com/ link. :)

PenultimateHop

637 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#919578 22-Oct-2013 10:29

Look into an HSBC Premier account since you already bank with them. Instant, fee-free global transfers between HSBC operations around the world. Citi has something similar with their CitiGold product.

greenbone

176 posts

Master Geek

#919591 22-Oct-2013 11:24

the process for bitcoin would be: uk bank - uk exchange - (wallet) - nz exchange - nz bank

the "exchange" part can be either local (localbitcoins.com etc) or remote (bitstamp, mtgox etc)

however as youre not physically in the UK the first exchange will have to be remote- see https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_bitcoins for exchanges that deal in GBP

once youve deposited GBP into the exchange of your choice, trade GBP - BTC. then send the bitcoin either to your personal wallet address (for storage or in readiness for a local exchange) or to your address associated with your account at the nz exchange. then trade BTC - NZD

drawn out process? maybe, but this is a system in relative infancy ... you will get used to it though, and once adoption and integration increase the process will be easier (eventually you may not even have to convert BTC - NZD to pay rent, groceries etc).

you should save a significant amount on fees. as an idea, one of the larger exchanges, bitstamp, has fees of 0.5%. if you can complete the BTC - NZD locally there will be no fee

jpoc

1043 posts

Uber Geek

#919747 22-Oct-2013 15:18

One problem that I can see is that there is very little liquidity in the New Zealand Bitcoin market and it is often out of step with the international market.

For example, if you were trying to buy BTC on an international exchange today, you would be paying about US$174. If you were then to sell them on BitNZ - the main local exchange - you would see that the best offer price is NZ$188 which is a lot below the price suggested by today's exchange rate. Then you must consider that, at that price, there is only an offer for a little over one tenth of a BTC. If you had to sell 4 BTC, you would end up with an average price of around NZ$176 which is even worse. Of course, you would not have to accept those prices, you could post a sell offer on the site but then you would have to wait for a buyer and even then if the BTC dropped you would never sell and would have to accept a lower price.

Of course, if you did come in and start trading on BTC-NZ$ markets then you would be increasing the market liquidity but why is the NZ$ price for BTC almost always below the US$ price? It is because there are more sellers than buyers in NZ.

charsleysa

597 posts

Ultimate Geek

#919980 22-Oct-2013 20:38

Can you not link your UK and NZ bank accounts to PayPal and just transfer your money through PayPal?

Regards
Stefan Andres Charsley

AliExpress

Shop now on AliExpress (affiliate link).

Geektastic

17943 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#920117 23-Oct-2013 08:50

lee2121: Hi,

I work for myself from home doing affiliate marketing meaning that my income spread across various bank accounts etc. The bulk of my money goes into my UK HSBC account since I can't transfer it directly into a NZ account.

I also have a PayPal account linked into this bank account.

The problem is when I need to transfer the money from UK to NZ I'm losing quite a bit of money due to transfer fees, currency conversions etc. Last transfer I had to pay $500 just to get my money.

I'm currently in the process of joining Kiwibank so I can hook another PayPal account into my NZ bank so I don't have to lose money on the international transfer.

But since the bulk of my money comes from my HSBC account I'm trying to figure out a cheaper way to get it into my NZ account.

I'm currently looking into Bitcoins as an option, does anyone know of a bank that would allow me to transfer Bitcoins into my account?

Has anyone tried converting money into Bitcoins from a foreign bank into a NZ bank? Did it work out cheaper?

Thanks

HSBC is an international bank.

Why not merely open a sterling account with HSBC in NZ and have the money paid into that by transfer from your HSBC account in the UK? You can convert it to dollars if and when you feel like it.

Beddhist

57 posts

Master Geek

#929605 8-Nov-2013 17:12

A couple of points:

the BTC exchange rate is very volatile. Today, the price is exploding. Looks like a bubble about to burst, but good for me, as I'm moving some Euro to here.

I have used XE.com many times to move money to and from NZ. They have bank accounts in Europe and NZ, so it's bank transfers, rather than wire, which is free. They also charge no fees and only earn through a 1% exchange margin. This means I can transfer Euro to NZ within a few days at 0.5% below the exchange rate quoted by XE.com/UCC and pay no fees. The initial setup was a bit of a pain, as I had to prove my identity, but now it's plain sailing. You can also use them to pay somebody in another country.

Regards,
Peter.

TwoSeven

1623 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#929619 8-Nov-2013 17:33

Why cant you use your UK eftpos and credit card here. At the end of the day you will pay the spot price for currency conversion anyhow one would expect, so does it matter if you do the conversion in the UK or here?

That is, unless your UK bank charges for using cards/making transactions overseas.

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Beddhist

57 posts

Master Geek

#929625 8-Nov-2013 17:44

BankDirect & ASB: " The Offshore Service Margin is 1.85%."

Also: there are pretty small limits on how much you can draw out of an ATM per day and week. Try to transfer $10,000...

Paypal also charges pretty stiff fees on many types of account. I used to have a free personal a/c in Germany and they did away with that, so now I pay 2% (I think, haven't used it in a long time.).