I've used Wise (previously Transferwise) for years to transfer money between Aus and NZ.
Just noticed that they have a deal where if you sign up with a referral code (See the random codes below) you get zero fees on your first NZ$900 transfer.
I just tried an example to Australia and that's about a $5 savings, not sure what other countries are like, but if you use wise or are thinking about it, it's a nice savings to have. And even more useful if you're transferring a large amount!
Referrer receives $130 for every 3 signups, who must all spend $175 each. Referee receives either one free transfer (Up to $900), or they receive a free physical card. (Keep clicking the referral randomiser until you receive the offer you want)
I really like Wise, been using them for a while too. MUCH cheaper than Paypal, and often faster as well
I used to transfer to NZ with CBA. $30 per transaction mininum! Similar with TD in Canada. And it'd take longer. Wise is almost always just a few hours.
As someone who lives 50/50 in AU and NZ really recommend Wise especially with the physical card. Really easy to transfer money back and forward and really easy to deposit and withdraw and I have really shopped around and they seem to be market leading with the feed and rates. The app and systems all seem to work so well.
The digital cards are also very useful for signing up for trials etc that need credit cards.
The only thing I will point out to new users is go into the settings and change all the limits (like max transaction charge, biggest paywave, enable Google pay etc) to suit you.. they are quite low and locked down by default and this caught me out a few times at the start.
Thanks! I see opening an account with Wise is free but there's a NZ $14 fee to obtain the debit card. Is the debit card the physical card? Would love to get one but was hoping there wasn't a card fee.
Yes , unfortunately you do have to pay the $14 for the physical card even if you don't intend to use it.
Pretty cheap though for the benefits.
I've never gotten a card from them. I just transfer online.
Perfect! Thank you :)
You dont need a physical card - You can create a virtual one and then use google pay/apple pay in physical location. I just found the card handy when travelling and a backup to the phone which can run out of battery or other issues - and of course some places refuse to accept paywave or charge fees to do so and want a chip card. In the US they are even more old school and want you to swipe the card with the magnetic swipe (same in Japan I found) a lot so thats another factor, and its only a one off $14 which I doubt they make anything out of, so seems fair.
Quite a nice looking card as well, I have had a number of people in shops comment on it.
I don't think you can get virtual cards until you buy the physical card.
@quasar: Correct.
However, you don’t even need to wait for the physical card to arrive as you can start using the virtual cards pretty much straight away.
@bigcheese: Interesting. I setup an account and bought the card at the same time, so never noticed as always had them.
There was a promotion in the past when the physical was free. Got mine thru that. Haven't used it much, but a friend of mine has found it useful for withdrawing cash during a trip to Japan recently.
If you don't need to physically withdraw cash then you don't even need the physical card.
You can load your digital cards onto Apple Pay / Google Pay and pay contactless.
I did this when I was in Oz a few months back and it was so easy - don't think I found anywhere that didn't accept a contactless payment.
Especially useful when I (well my wife!) lost the physical card. Simply blocked the physical card in the app and didn't bother replacing until I arrived back in NZ.
Thank you! Hoping to get to Australia at some stage so this is great to know of, thanks.
Physical card is required though to activate virtual cards irrespective if you use it or not.
Oh so no way of avoiding the $14 fee then.
I've heard that Western Union is quite cheap too, but haven't tried.
Damn I just made an account yesterday for an upcoming trip. Haven’t ordered physical card yet. Will have to look into the fees
have you used it? could consider deleting account and start again?
Nope, didn’t know I could delete the account! Thank you, I will 😁
This is not new. It has been like this for long. I got the free transfer when I opened the account almost 1.5yrs ago. I got my father to open an account as well last year as he had to transfer money to NZ and we got the same free fees offer.
Highly recommend Wise not only they have good transfer rate & less fees than others, but added benefit of virtual credit cards and having local accounts in different countries helps alot. Also, can be used with Cashrewards to deposit to AU bank account rather than using Paypal who charge fees. And the debit card is very useful while traveling.
ALSO - don't screw it up like me. e.g. if you are paying in another currency, top up in NZD and then transfer NZD to the intended currency as opposed to topping up in the currency directly. It works out ALOT cheaper. I got stung because of this mistake badly……
Oh dang. I wish I knew this before depositing a boatload of Yen haha.
This used to be the case but I thought they fixed this about 2 years ago?
They're up front about all the fees you pay when you do the conversion. It's no different whether you do it directly or indirectly. Doing it directly just means you lock in the rate at that time.
Wise is really good, saved me a lot of money, check what paypal charge in currency exchange vs Wise, not insignificant. The digital cards are epic for trials, VPN's etc, sign up with digital card, delete digital card happy days. Sky sport now has been running almost a month for free, they just send me an email every week saying my payment has failed, keep letting me use the service :D
My experience with them is unfortunate, they close the account without any reasoning and just ignore you.
I signed up, bought the physical card and they cancelled it and refunded the money . Never said why, I didn't bother following up.
They did the same to me - twice - trying to pay the $14 for the card using my credit card. I emailed them and while they couldn't really explain why they accepted the payment twice using my credit card, then refunded the payment twice, I ended up transferring a small amount of money to the card using direct debit, then paid the $14 from the balance. Worked fine and got the physical card within 2 weeks, but a bit of a roundabout way to sort it out.
We just had the same thing happen - it turns out that after you order the card you have to wait 5 to 10 minutes and then go back to the main screen. It then says the payment is held up pending you asking a couple of questions. Once you do that it is okay and the transaction proceeds. Probably a bot / money laundering thing.
Just explaining in case it helps future people.
I made an account recently, deposited the 30 bucks too but am waiting on a valid ID.
I can still access the account despite this and it says it may not be required to transfer money to another country.
Does anyone know if it's possible to send from NZ to Brazil without a verified ID?
You can only try but in reality Wise is no different to a bank in this aspect (apart from much lower fees)
I would expect that you would need a verified ID in order to send money overseas, primarily to ensure that Wise is compliant with AML (Anti Money Laundering) legislation.
They are still a regulated financial institution.
You might be able to get away with small amounts but larger denomintions will most certainly require you to be verified.
What I would say is that I would be careful not to try and send too much as it may get frozen until they confirm your identity.
Does anyone know what Wise is like for transferring money to the UK from NZ and vice versa?
But you're broke! haha, Seriously though, I dont have any experience with UK but Aust and Indonesia to NZ and vice versa have both been great. I think the rates are similar regardless of the countries.
Wise also uses the mid-market rate which is much better than what you will find if you did a telegraphic transfer at a bank.
I can't comment on the UK either but Australia was certainly hassle free.
Change some USD at a westpac branch last year, it's basically theivery, pack of C-words.
No issue at all. Same as any other supported place. I sent some pounds the other day to a friend of mine. You can send directly to people (who have a wise account) or deposit into their bank accounts
Fees vary but have found they are always less than any other option and miles less than trying to say do it via a bank.
Better to use Poli rather than debit card as a top up on your account. Much cheaper transaction with poli or bank transfer. But bank transfer will take a long time for your money to go in.
Not really that long. On wise it says “usually 2 hours”, however, most of the time my bank transfers are completed within an hour. The exception is weekends ofc.
I second this. Usually about an hour.
I get AUS to NZ payments with bank transfer end to end in under 6 hours at times. The initial transfer is often registered within minutes.
Shame they just halted all transfer to Argentina. Thanks Argentina and your crappy goverment, following me to the far corners of the world ha.
Hi all,
Hopefully those of you in the know can advise - I've got a wise card, just wanting to know how adding money via a Credit Card works (apart for the higher fee taken from Wise). Does this get treated as a cash advance on the CC itself - so subject to additional fees/costs?
Cheers
Wing
I am pretty sure that is cash advance.
I agree - it will most certainly be treated as a cash advance from your credit card provider.
That would be probably the most expensive way to add money to your account so not sure why you would do it that way.
As well as any cash advance fee you will also incur interest.
A bank transfer from your NZ account costs nothing.
Thanks both for confirming my thoughts.
I couldn't see anything from Wise around that, so good to have it sense checked. Main reason I would've considered using it would've been for the instant transfer of funds (which may come in handy over the weekend) - although as noted above, a normal bank transfer only takes a couple of hours at most as well as being free, so just need to have good plans in place.
Can anyone clarify what they mean by a first transfer?
My partner just tried and seems like they count putting NZD onto the card as one so it gives you the discount of that fee - 54 cents but then if you transfer $900NZD to another currency there’s no discount of $4.68 that there should be because it’s not your first “transfer”? Maybe he didn’t use the referral link correctly 🤔
Yep, that ones been around a while.
The referrer also gets NZ $130 when three signups send over NZ $350 in one transaction (not £50 for every 3 signups and/or £15 like the link states)