Hello again! We just made our second successful transfer using Currency Online yesterday and we continue to be happy with the process. This time we transfered a large sum and it was just as easy and well-managed as the first smaller transfer for our earnest money for the sale. There are no fees for any transaction over $5000 - under $5000 there is a $5 fee, which still seems very reasonable to me. Check out their website. http://www.currencyonline.com We also made a few calls to their toll-free number and they were very helpful and walked us through the process. I believe that our agent was actually in New Zealand. To clarify the Citibank question that you had, the sequence went like this for us: We watched the euro exchange rate in two places online: on xe.com as well as signing into Currency Online and watching their rate for the amount of euros we needed to buy. When it reached an exchange rate that we were satisfied with, we bought them simply by clicking on their "Accept" button. We were able to see the exact amount of dollars we needed to pay before we made this decision. C.O. put the euros directly into our account and we then needed to arrange the payment. We bank with a credit union and so we arranged a wire transfer to Currency Online to move our dollars to our Currency Online account to pay for the euros. The credit union charged a $25 fee for this - this was our only extra fee we needed to pay from start to finish. We sent our dollars to C.O's US bank which is Citibank New York. C.O. held the euros for us until we gave them directions to transfer the euros to our builder's bank account in Italy. There was no fee for us or for him. As it turns out, we didn't need to send him the euros right away, so C.O. held them for us for about one week until I went online and simply requested them to transfer the euros. They would have held them as long as I had requested them to. As I mentioned before, we get no interest while they are holding our money, but it turned out nicely for us, because the euros cost us almost $2000 less than they would have had we bought them today (only 7 days later!) because the euro/dollar rate dropped and wasn't in our favor over the course of the last few days. We hope to buy some more euros when the exchange rate improves and will have C.O. hold them for us until our next payment is due in several months. Whew. This makes it sound much more complicated that it really was. Again, we're happy to share our experience - let us know if you have any more questions. (I realize that this sounds like an advertisement for C.O., but we are very happy with them and our British friends have been very happy with C.O.'s affiliate, HiFx.) SteveO
Hi Lisa, We were in Italy this summer and found a property in Umbria which we fell in love with, put an offer on and are in the process of paying for it (in total) between now and when we return in June to stay for our first summer there. The place is a 300 year old building which is being renovated and so the builder didn't require an outright full payment as he is working on it right now. We are making 4 payments to him between now and June. We were recommended to check out HiFX for a currency exchange but they specifically deal with UK exchanges. Their US affiliate is called Currency Online. We have been using them and are very pleased. It is simple to set up an account. When we needed our earnest money, we simply went online, watched the rate "live" on their website, purchased a small amount of euros for the offer money, had our bank do a wire transfer to Citibank NY and then advised Currency Online where we wanted to euros to be sent. No fees involved. Excellent customer service via emails and phone. We, too, are watching the rates and hope to purchase some euros gradually over the year to build up for our next larger payment. (This week hasn't been a good one for the dollar but we have a few months, luckily, before out next payment.) No interest is accrued in the account while they hold our euros, but grabbing them at a favorable rate supercedes that. Hope this information is helpful to you! Good luck on your search and feel free to email me if you have any more questions. It's nice to find a fellow "americano" on this board with similar issues!
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Hello again! We just made our second successful transfer using Currency Online yesterday and we continue to be happy with the process. This time we transfered a large sum and it was just as easy and well-managed as the first smaller transfer for our earnest money for the sale. There are no fees for any transaction over $5000 - under $5000 there is a $5 fee, which still seems very reasonable to me. Check out their website. http://www.currencyonline.com We also made a few calls to their toll-free number and they were very helpful and walked us through the process. I believe that our agent was actually in New Zealand. To clarify the Citibank question that you had, the sequence went like this for us: We watched the euro exchange rate in two places online: on xe.com as well as signing into Currency Online and watching their rate for the amount of euros we needed to buy. When it reached an exchange rate that we were satisfied with, we bought them simply by clicking on their "Accept" button. We were able to see the exact amount of dollars we needed to pay before we made this decision. C.O. put the euros directly into our account and we then needed to arrange the payment. We bank with a credit union and so we arranged a wire transfer to Currency Online to move our dollars to our Currency Online account to pay for the euros. The credit union charged a $25 fee for this - this was our only extra fee we needed to pay from start to finish. We sent our dollars to C.O's US bank which is Citibank New York. C.O. held the euros for us until we gave them directions to transfer the euros to our builder's bank account in Italy. There was no fee for us or for him. As it turns out, we didn't need to send him the euros right away, so C.O. held them for us for about one week until I went online and simply requested them to transfer the euros. They would have held them as long as I had requested them to. As I mentioned before, we get no interest while they are holding our money, but it turned out nicely for us, because the euros cost us almost $2000 less than they would have had we bought them today (only 7 days later!) because the euro/dollar rate dropped and wasn't in our favor over the course of the last few days. We hope to buy some more euros when the exchange rate improves and will have C.O. hold them for us until our next payment is due in several months. Whew. This makes it sound much more complicated that it really was. Again, we're happy to share our experience - let us know if you have any more questions. (I realize that this sounds like an advertisement for C.O., but we are very happy with them and our British friends have been very happy with C.O.'s affiliate, HiFx.) SteveO
Hi Lisa, We were in Italy this summer and found a property in Umbria which we fell in love with, put an offer on and are in the process of paying for it (in total) between now and when we return in June to stay for our first summer there. The place is a 300 year old building which is being renovated and so the builder didn't require an outright full payment as he is working on it right now. We are making 4 payments to him between now and June. We were recommended to check out HiFX for a currency exchange but they specifically deal with UK exchanges. Their US affiliate is called Currency Online. We have been using them and are very pleased. It is simple to set up an account. When we needed our earnest money, we simply went online, watched the rate "live" on their website, purchased a small amount of euros for the offer money, had our bank do a wire transfer to Citibank NY and then advised Currency Online where we wanted to euros to be sent. No fees involved. Excellent customer service via emails and phone. We, too, are watching the rates and hope to purchase some euros gradually over the year to build up for our next larger payment. (This week hasn't been a good one for the dollar but we have a few months, luckily, before out next payment.) No interest is accrued in the account while they hold our euros, but grabbing them at a favorable rate supercedes that. Hope this information is helpful to you! Good luck on your search and feel free to email me if you have any more questions. It's nice to find a fellow "americano" on this board with similar issues!