I am obliged to use these services as an intermediary for online transfers because my french bank sees Thailand as risky for some reason(!?).

Is there an alternative to Wise with a small % fee and a small minimum service charge so when transferring sums of a few thousand euros the latter is also proportional to the amount sent.

Wise has been ok in the past, just checking for alternatives.

Thank you🍁🙏

Remitly

You could see if OFX does the currency you want. Originally Australian but have expanded to other countries. Anything over AUD10000 is fee free.

Revolut works much like Wise. I have both, but I mainly use Revolut now. You will need an address in Europe, the UK, or the United States to open an account with Revolut, though.

You can alternatively open an account with Interactive Brokers in the US using an address in Thailand. It’s very easy to open an account with them from overseas. You also don’t have to use it as a trading account, you can simply keep money in the cash holding account in five different major currencies, including euros.

They allow two free wire transfers out per month to anywhere in the world, so you could wire euros to Thailand for free from that account. However, I think they only allow you to wire money to other accounts held in your own name.

4 minutes ago, FriscoKid said:

Revolut works much like Wise. I have both, but I mainly use Revolut now. You will need an address in Europe, the UK, or the United States to open an account with Revolut, though.

You can alternatively open an account with Interactive Brokers in the US using an address in Thailand. It’s very easy to open an account with them from overseas. You also don’t have to use it as a trading account, you can simply keep money in the cash holding account in five different major currencies, including euros.

They allow two free wire transfers out per month to anywhere in the world, so you could wire euros to Thailand for free from that account. However, I think they only allow you to wire money to other accounts held in your own name.

Same here but I upgraded to the Revolut Premium Plan (£80 pa) as I’ve been using it extensively when paying for stuff in the Maldives & Malaysia, has no fees & better exchange rates than the Money changers.

I also keep a Thai Pot & when the rates are favourable, transfer some GBP across to it, when the rates are poor I sometimes transfer THB back to GBP (Made £60 doing this last time).

Only use Wise every 6 months or so, think it’s good to have a little activity to keep the account alive.

Edit: Have an IBKR account opened from & registered to my Thai address, I also opened a “Joint with Survivorship” account with my Thai Partner so she can get access to some money whilst waiting for probate to complete should I die.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by SamSpade
Add IBKR point

1 hour ago, SamSpade said:

Same here but I upgraded to the Revolut Premium Plan (£80 pa) as I’ve been using it extensively when paying for stuff in the Maldives & Malaysia, has no fees & better exchange rates than the Money changers.

I also keep a Thai Pot & when the rates are favourable, transfer some GBP across to it, when the rates are poor I sometimes transfer THB back to GBP (Made £60 doing this last time).

Only use Wise every 6 months or so, think it’s good to have a little activity to keep the account alive.

Edit: Have an IBKR account opened from & registered to my Thai address, I also opened a “Joint with Survivorship” account with my Thai Partner so she can get access to some money whilst waiting for probate to complete should I die.

Thank you for the information. I've looked at the Revolut Premium options, but I don't travel enough to make the cost of the upgrade worthwhile, and I don't currently do enough currency exchanging to justify it either. I may exchange more in the future, but for now I still have enough Thai Baht reserves in Thailand.

I've also compared Wise and Revolut fairly often when converting dollars or euros to baht, and Wise frequently offers a rate around 20 satang better than Revolut. Even though Wise charges a fee for each exchange, the overall cost still tends to work out lower because of the better exchange rate. I therefore still use Wise occasionally, particularly for quickly moving money between linked accounts, but I no longer keep much money there, just a small amount as an emergency backup. I prefer to keep larger balances and multiple currencies with Revolut.

Another reason I prefer Revolut for holding money is that it operates under banking licenses, so eligible deposits are covered by the applicable government-backed deposit protection scheme. Wise operates differently and isn't a bank in the same sense, so funds held there don't have the same type of deposit protection. For that reason, I feel more comfortable keeping larger amounts with Revolut.

I also don't believe it's necessary to move money through Wise every six months simply to keep the account active. These fintech companies generally don't require regular transactions, and you can leave the balance at zero. Occasional login activity should be sufficient.

PayPal, for example, has historically closed accounts after prolonged login inactivity of three years.

Regarding the joint-with-survivorship account you mentioned, is that with Interactive Brokers? It sounds interesting, and I'd like to know more about it, please.

One disadvantage of Interactive Brokers for overseas account holders with a Thai address is that you can't designate a beneficiary. You can only do that with them if you have an onshore address on the account for some reason. Being able to name a beneficiary can make things considerably simpler if the account holder suddenly dies, potentially avoiding the need for the beneficiary to go through the probate process all together.

Fidelity is more flexible in this respect. They allow beneficiaries to be designated even for some customers residing outside the US or UK. I'm not sure whether they still open new accounts for residents outside those countries, as their requirements change from time to time, but they did in the past.

But if someone has a UK address that they can legitimately use, it may also be worth checking whether Fidelity would allow them to open an account, particularly if the beneficiary issue is important to them. I'd confirm the current account-opening requirements first, though, as these can change.

@SamSpade sorry, you don't need to provide more information about the IBKR Joint with Survivorship account. I already got some more info about it from their online Bot assistant. Thanks again.