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Comment by computator | Hacker News Reader

Would it be safe to use this if you're transferring a very large amount of money, for example to buy a house in a foreign country? Anyone have experiences (good or bad) with large transfers they'd like to share?

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I have used it to pay a large foreign tax bill, so not quite a house. If the amount is GBP£30000 (might have changed now), you can arrange a longer pay-in time (normally it is 24 hours) and they will let you have the cash sit in your account for up to a week and then find the right rate.

Later: Appears they have lowered the threshold to £20000 now (see https://transferwise.com/help/articles/2961856/tips-for-gett...)

I'd look at other options like OFX, they end up being cheaper for large transfers and are geared towards the kind of transfer you mention.

+1 of OFX. I use TransferWise a lot for cross border treasury management, but used OFX when moving $large_sum USD->EUR to buy a flat in the EU because they offered a better conversion rate.

They are not covered by any kind of FDIC equivalent (and in fairness there's not really any good deposit insurance regime for international accounts). They claim to use ringfenced accounts for customer funds but AIUI that's all self-certified (and wasn't there at all when they first started, although I understand they've gotten a bit more professional in various ways). I wouldn't worry too much about making a one-off transfer under normal circumstances - the risk of them going bankrupt in the next week is pretty low - but I'd be a little wary of keeping a substantial balance with them over the long term.

Completed multiple 7 figure transfers on a virgin account without a hitch - for the very reason of purchasing abroad.

Saved > 35kEU in rates - the local bank FX rates were daylight robbery.

I would advice doing it in batches, you pay by percentage on doing multiple transfers doesn't affect you on the monetary level.

Concretely there should be no difference, but your spirit would be less impacted.

I did this when I first used TW many years ago, when I had no idea if the service was reliable and the transfers would take days.

Yes, I did that and it worked fine.

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