What is the cheapest and fastest way to transfer money from one country to another?

Has anyone done this before? I did it through my banks last time and it took forever!




Thank you!

I will be facing this situation soon. I have been told to speak with the manager of a bank and see if I can wave the hold on the money I deposit. I will be writing a check to the bank. I believe the bank can waive the hold on the funds and release the money to whatever account you have.

jbchavez said:

Maybe I should have tried to ask them to waive the fee. It only took days for it to be taken out of my US acct but took over 5 weeks to appear in my Uk acct.
One of the banks got to make money off of my money for 5 weeks and I was left waiting without access to my money.

I would like to avoid that situation again.

I will be opening a Canadian bank account soon. I have been instructed to speak with the bank manager to waive the hold time on the money. I am not sure if there is an agreement with my employeer and the bank. Hopefully, I will not have to wait five weeks.

jbchavez said:

I hope you won't either. This was a simple bank to bank transfer. Not sure why it took so long.
Crazy huh?

Can you just withdraw the amount you want out of an ATM and then deposit the cash into your UK account?
Obviously that won't work for large sums, but it's actually usually a competitive exchange rate with minimal fee...

CarrieMpls said:

I guess that is how I assumed I would do it before I got here. I guess it was because I transfer $10,000 over last time that I realised that would not work.
I need to look into that again though. Someone told me that moneybookers was good and fast.
I am researching them at the moment. It is really the sucky exchange rate this is pissing me off at the moment.