Sending money from the UK to Australia

[HowVeryBizarre]

Not sure if this is the best place to post, but thought I would get the widest experience. MIL (who lives in the UK) has always maintained that it is impossible to transfer money from the UK to Aus without incurring huge bank charges but I don't know if that is true. DD (we are in Aus) has just bought an expensive present for her friend's sister who is living here at the moment as the sister was worried anything she sent from the UK wouldn't arrive on time for Christmas. All very lovely of DD and her friend has said she will send her the money but she doesn't seem to know how. I use WISE to transfer money overseas which is easy but involves setting up an account. An 18yo just wants to transfer money from her UK bank account to DD's Aus one. We don't use Swift codes - any ideas of the best way to do it? thanks.

I have a son living in Australia and use Wise to transfer money to him.

Fees are usually less than a pound and it generally takes a few minutes to get to his account.

I live overseas (not Oz) and use Wise. The bank rates tend to be much higher so would advise against a normal bank transfer as the currency exchange rates tend to not be favourable.

An alternative is CurrenciesDirect (used to use this all the time but then they stopped providing services for the currency I needed for a while so switched to Wise)

Here’s some info

https://wise.com/gb/send-money/

I’ve used them for years btw, so they are legit

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I use Wise too and it's great - I was just hoping for something more straightforward for DD's friend. I can just see DD never getting her money as her friend, with the best intentions in the world, will find the whole thing too complicated.

if an 18 year old finds setting up a wise account too complicated then she’ll have to suck up the fees charged by the bank.

is this some kind of excuse to get out of actually paying?

I have transferred money direct to overseas bank accounts using my high street bank bank app. Done in a couple of clicks. They do charge nearly 3% if the transaction isn’t in Sterling though. Less for huge amounts.

@MagpiePi I don't think so tbh, but I do know that she doesn't have a lot of money or life experience, I think the furthest she has travelled is London and she lives in the SE. I really don't mean that to sound horrible as she is a lovely girl but it's the reality. DD should also have waited until her friend sent her the money so maybe it will just be a life lesson!

@Oakbeam thanks.

Paypal?

I use Wise too. I did a small amount of money as a test to check i had the right iBAN. Then once set up you know it works.

I have always used Paypal. I don’t find the charges high my end (not sure of the receiver).

I still can’t believe how international bank charges are so high. Got stung several years back both me as payee, and a friend of my family member who’d sorted out a birthday present for me.

We use PayPal too

Thanks, I think she would be more familiar with PayPal.

I have bought quite a few things off from Australia Ebay and other places and paid with PayPal.

One thing you can do to reduce the cost is to link your PayPal account to a credit or debit card that doesn’t charge foreign transaction fees and make sure you choose the option to let your card supplier do the currency conversion.

There are several about. Halifax Clarity, Barclaycard, Chase and Starling, for example.

Apologies for the random word placement, I accidentally hit post before I’d finished. I’m sure you get the gist.

We use OzForex for big sums, for smaller ones you can do direct through the bank with an IBAN, but the way my family and I usually do it is to buy vouchers for each other - so my mum pays me back for UK spending on her in John Lewis/Sainsburys/whatever vouchers that I can then spend on groceries or whatever else I need.

Going the other way I usually buy Coles/Myer gift vouchers if I owe my family in Australia as can be used at those two plus Kmart, Target etc.

I always use Paypal to transfer money to my son in Canada. Works really well for us.

I also use Wise, highly recommend.
I use every month to send money to Oz, low fees and only takes a few minutes to arrive in Oz

Why not have the sterling amount sent to you and you can transfer it?

Sorry I see you are in Oz too!

A friend who works for Lloyds says never use your bank.

I use TORFX to transfer money from my UK bank account to my Aussie one.

I use revolut

Thanks for all the replies. Money arrived safely.

We live in Germany and find paypal or direct transfer to be best. To make a direct transfer from the UK you need to find out the IBAN from the recipient bank and then I think friend will have to go into the branch to make the transfer. I may be out of date with that info, but you used to, not sure if covid changed things.

I should look up Wise though.

From paypal you can either hold a balance there or withdraw to your account.