# Simplii Global Money Transfer



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Has anyone used the Simplii Financial Global Money Transfer ?
https://www.simplii.com/en/global-money-transfer.html

They are advertising a special offer, rebate of $30 for existing accounts for the first transfer. I presume this is a wire transfer service. Does anyone know what kind of FX they charge?

Unfortunately, _receiving_ wires often incurs a fee, which Simplii cannot control. Still, sending with no fee is interesting.

I'm going to try sending one to the US to see what happens. I suspect I can make a net profit too


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I tried it out; here's a review (and used the promo code on their web page)

Entering recipient info: for the US, this was pretty easy using just the info found on the recipient's cheque. US cheques have a 9 digit bank routing code, which Simplii recognized. Simplii does a 2 factor authentication before accepting the destination of the funds. That's a nice measure to make sure a hacker isn't using this to drain your account.

Conversion: I sent 100 CAD, the minimum. The real-time value of this according to XE was 75.90 USD. Simplii says they will send 73.87 USD which indicates a *2.7% FX fee*.

The resulting activity in my Simplii chequing account shows a total of $100 withdrawn:


```
Sep 9, 2019     GLOBAL MONEY TRANSFER 73.8 [email protected]     $100.00
```
It seems like a pretty nice interface, with straightforward FX conversion with no fee to send. I will post an update once I receive the funds. I'm curious how much of the 73.87 USD will arrive. I believe the receiving US bank may take a $15 fee when receiving funds. With the promo code rebate offer, I might still come out ahead.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

I've used XE for these international wire transfers for years and it costs ~1.5% in my experience. It doesn't do 2 factor authentication though which I am a fan of. Does it just use SMS codes like Canadian banks do? (2 step verification vs true 2FA?)

Have you looked at transferwise or everforex? I haven't tried them but they're supposed to have lower fees of ~0.15% and ~0.5%. With all these 3rd party solutions like Zelle in the US I'm surprised NA doesn't get a secure online money transfer system running


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Thanks for sharing m3s. I didn't realize XE was that cheap (at 1.5%) but I haven't use any of these. I've only done wire transfers through banks, or written cheques and deposited them in person when I'm physically hopping borders.

The 2 factor auth was at the step when a new destination/account is added. It was SMS or a voice call to a phone number on file, where you receive a code and have to enter it.

I haven't tried any of those other services. Any idea what I should do when I already have USD (in a Canadian US$ account) and want to move it to a US bank? No FX conversion is needed in that scenario.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

james4beach said:


> I haven't tried any of those other services. Any idea what I should do when I already have USD (in a Canadian US$ account) and want to move it to a US bank? No FX conversion is needed in that scenario.


I looked into Transferwise and Paypal to do that - no bueno as far as I could tell

The only options I found was to write myself a USD cheque or call TD.. (they can wire USD and refund the wire fees between TD Bank and TD Canada) I was surprised how unnecessarily complicated this is to do compared to Europe which has free/secure instant international transfers. Most of the Canadian banks seems to have some kind of "cross border banking" patchwork solution and glossy brochure

Crypto currency could easily solve this.. but it's wild west until the financial regulations catch up (FinTRAC plans to track crypto in Canada next year..)


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

m3s said:


> I looked into Transferwise and Paypal to do that - no bueno as far as I could tell
> 
> The only options I found was to write myself a USD cheque or call TD.. (they can wire USD and refund the wire fees between TD Bank and TD Canada) I was surprised how unnecessarily complicated this is to do compared to Europe which has free/secure instant international transfers. Most of the Canadian banks seems to have some kind of "cross border banking" patchwork solution and glossy brochure


Thanks for the valuable info. < sigh > ... how can it be this difficult to transfer USD from a giant Canadian bank to a giant US bank? Just unbelievable how hard this is -- it's like we're still living in the 1950s or something.

I sometimes even transport cash, carrying a few thousand USD and depositing it at the American teller. Depositing a cheque is one step up from this, but why are electronic techniques so far behind?


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

james4beach said:


> I will post an update once I receive the funds. I'm curious how much of the 73.87 USD will arrive. I believe the receiving US bank may take a $15 fee when receiving funds. With the promo code rebate offer, I might still come out ahead.


Well this is interesting. I received the full 73.87 USD at Wells Fargo (transfer took 1 business day). I didn't see any fee at the receiving bank, but maybe it will come later?


```
09/09/19	INTERNATIONAL MONEY TRANSFER CREDIT	$73.87
```
Since I started with 100 CAD and ended with 73.87 USD = 97.30 CAD, the only fee was the FX spread (2.7%). The market FX rate did not move at all during this period, so no complication from that.

Plus, I should get a $30 promo credit from Simplii, meaning that I made $27 during this experiment.

Assuming the receiving fee doesn't show up later, this is the least expensive international wire transfer I've seen anywhere. Very interesting. Or maybe it varies by receiving bank.

If anyone uses a different US bank, I'd love to know if you also receive this without fee. You'll get some free money for testing it out, too. Make sure you use the 9 digit US bank routing code method.


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## scorpion_ca (Nov 3, 2014)

Why would any bank charge fee to receive fund? It doesn't make a sense.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I spoke too soon. Darn. The receiving US bank charged a $16 wire fee today.



scorpion_ca said:


> Why would any bank charge fee to receive fund? It doesn't make a sense.


Banks usually charge wire fees on both ends. Wire transfers are a real treat for all banks involved... generally, the sending, intermediary, and receiving bank all take a fee, even if there is no FX conversion.

Ignoring FX... in this case, CIBC (Simplii) sent the 76 USD with no fee on their end. The receiving bank took 16 USD so what I received was 60 USD.

Simplii's service is certainly better than paying a fee at the sending bank, but banks still nail you on wire transfers. I did a small transfer here, and 100 CAD turned into ~ 78 CAD. However if I did a large transfer of thousands, the only significant fee would be the 2.7% FX.

That's still better than what a Big Five bank would do, so at least it's an improvement.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

scorpion_ca said:


> Why would any bank charge fee to receive fund? It doesn't make a sense.


Don't all Cdn banks charge to receive international wire transfers? TD Canada charged me $17.50 USD last time (and then refunded it since it was from my own TD bank..) I seem to remember seeing $25 fees to receive a wire transfer before

Again in Europe you can transfer money internationally using only an IBAN. It's free, fast and secure. Wire transfers are none of the above so we end up using 3rd party services to transfer funds. Here's a comparison of a long list of them and TransferWise seems to come out of top. I've been meaning to try it next time although it weird I couldn't send US USD to Cdn USD with it



james4beach said:


> Simplii's service is certainly better than paying a fee at the sending bank, but banks still nail you on wire transfers. I did a small transfer here, and 100 CAD turned into ~ 78 CAD. However if I did a large transfer of thousands, the only significant fee would be the 2.7% FX.
> 
> That's still better than what a Big Five bank would do, so at least it's an improvement.


2.7% is a non starter for me when XE has been around for a long time at about half that rate. This seems to target people who are skeptical of using a 3rd party online service

TransferWise is relatively new and I haven't tried it but ~0.5% is over 5 times less (people have reported even lower than 0.5%) plus no wire transfer fees


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## scorpion_ca (Nov 3, 2014)

Have you tried Moneygram?


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Moneygram appears to be the fastest and also most expensive on this list I posted above


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## Banff (Jun 2, 2019)

Last time I checked, Transferwise had added fees for depositing money into your account with them. So they have the wire transfer fee, the exchange rate fee, and the third fee for getting your money to them!

I don't know whether deposit fee is still the case and cannot check as cannot sign in due to some problem at their end. Sigh. Used to like Transferwise .... good things tend to have short lifespans.

In the meantime, Simplii might be challenged for quoting an amount the "recipient receives" (the same terminology Transferwise uses - accurately). This is NOT the amount the recipient receives in most cases as there is the incoming wire transfer fee by their bank as many here have pointed out. Typical CIBC - liars and cheats.


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## Banff (Jun 2, 2019)

UPDATE: Yes, have confirmed Transferwise still DOES have a fee for receiving the money you transfer to them for your subsequent wire transfer.

Just did a money transfer from CAD to Asia and Simplii beat Transferwise on "amount received" as well as the actual exchange rate - even before taking into account the Twise fee for depositing money to them. Simplii is also faster (if you have an account with them) and easier. Yes, the recipient might face an incoming wire transfer fee. However, in my case there was none.

I take back what I said above about CIBC. They are actually providing a competitive service if my experience (twice) is typical.


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