Fri, 30 Dec 2005
Money transfer
Pavlina wanted to order some product over the Net from Germany. They did not offer the paymend by a credit card, so we went for a conventional money transfer via bank.
However, I have found that the bank fees for foreign money transfers are pretty high (the fees are starting at about 50 Euro for a single transfer inside the EU). We have asked our friends in Germany to pay it for us from the bank account in Germany, and we will pay to them here in .cz.
I think Europe is waaaay behind US in this - in the US (and Canada) small money transfers are easily possible via Paypal, and maybe even via bank accounts. Well, we have international bank account numbers (IBAN), but these is not usable for small money transfers because of the fees. The bank system is very old-fashioned in this (corresponding banks? WTF?). And Paypal does not accept payments to the Czech Republic (maybe they think we are some wild country full of terrorists, phishers, or whatever).
Are there any other ways to do small money transfers inside the EU? I mean, something better than sending the banknotes in the envelope by a snail mail ...
5 replies for this story:
Milan Zamazal wrote:
I know about moneybookers.com and firstgate.de.
Yenya wrote:
Does the above services allow to transfer money from me to an ordinary bank account in .de? I don't need proprietary money transfer system which both parties should agree on - I want something for payments to the shop in .de which allows money transfers via bank account only.
Milan Zamazal wrote:
AFAIK it doesn't (PayPal does?!).
Bjarne wrote: Mr
Actualy inside EU there are new rules that makes a EURO transfer with shared cost - each pay there side - much less then the old type payments. From Estonia to Nederland I think I pay some few EURO for the transfer - nothing like 50. Maybe you shuld check this and comlain to your bank:)
Yenya wrote: Shared cost transfers
Well, the "shared cost" transfers are still too expensive for me, not to mention that it is difficult to see what exact amount of money will be received by the recipient of the transfer. Hmm, even "few Euro" is still an order of magnitude higher than what I pay for the domestic money transfers.