Citi & International fund transfer

[hossein_au]

Now that Citi AUS is its last few days, I am in need to an international fund transfer system. Let me explain:

I have bank accounts in both AU and US. There are (rather frequent) times I need to pay off bills in the US. I use my US bank accounts to pay off my US bills. Up until now I have used Citi AUS to transfer funds directly from my Citi Debit account to my US bank account. Fund transfers have been straight forward, relatively quick, and with pretty decent exchange rates and no fees (either in theAU or the US side).

Now with the demise of Citi AU, I need to find an alternative to transfer funds from my AU bank accounts to one or more of my US bank account(s).

I did have a look at Wise, but their exchange rates and their fees seem to place them on par with bricks and mortar banks (i.e. NAB, CBA, etc)!

I wonder what experience of the others here are? Is there consensus on a good option?

 

[anyonebutqantas]

I find it surprising that a transfer with Wise would really be as bad as going directly through NAB or CBA.

You may also wish to compare other providers like Instarem. No doubt Zing will make its way to Australia eventually too.

 

[VPS]

I have compared Wise to banks and they are much better rates. Just checking that you are transferring the money to the currency you want to pay the bill in and then paying from that account - not that it should matter

 

[hossein_au]

I did a dry-run of a $1,000 transfer 2 days ago and CBA and NAB came out better than Wise! I just tried it now and Wise came out on top. So it seems I just need to time it right!

 

[hossein_au]

I tried it again just now (dry run for a A$10 transfer). Wise did not fair well: