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Transfer Money Overseas Cheaply using PayPal |
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Written by Martin Style
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I found that banks in Australia charge a fortune for overseas transfers. Maybe it's the same around the World, but I'm reluctant to pay a premium for that kind of service, especially if it's only for small amounts. I needed to transfer money from my bank account in Australia to one overseas and I was determined to find out the best way to do it.
I looked into different banks and money wiring services, but I found them all to carry a hefty charge. My bank, NAB, advertises a good rate of AU$22 for the service.
Now, I've been using Paypal for a while now and it's my preferential method of payment online. It allows me to send money to people and then withdraw it to a bank account in any country. Ding! A lightbulb moment. I already had a Paypal account in Australia, and so I set up another one overseas, where I wanted to send the money. Brilliant.
The only problem I found was that I had to use my Australia address for the overseas account because that's the only address that I have. Paypal didn't like that, and I soon got a message from them enquiring what the hell I was doing. At that moment, I thought that they weren't going to like how I was manipulating their system, but I told them (truthfully) exactly what I was trying to do and they accepted the application.
So now, I can transfer money from either bank account and withdraw it. Although the withdrawal process takes a few days to go from Paypal to your account, I don't get charged any fees for doing so. I've found the foreign exchange rates to be pretty reasonable too, but please make sure you check them out before doing any sending!
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