Flywire vs Bank Transfer for Japanese School Fees
December 13, 2021 10:44 AM Subscribe
I'm in the US and need to pay $4K in fees to a language school (ISI) in Japan. The options they have provided are Flywire or bank transfer. I am unfamiliar with the gotchas of using either method - does anyone who has done this before have a recommendation?
Also look into Transferwise. Use it to make the currency exchange yourself, and then send the funds.
Any time you allow a bank to exchange currencies for you, they take 1-2 % for themselves ($40-80 in your case). Paypal is the absolute worst.
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:13 AM on December 13, 2021
Any time you allow a bank to exchange currencies for you, they take 1-2 % for themselves ($40-80 in your case). Paypal is the absolute worst.
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:13 AM on December 13, 2021
Any time you allow a bank to exchange currencies for you, they take 1-2 % for themselves ($40-80 in your case
If you go the bank route, you'll also want to look up their transfer fees (aside from their currency exchange fees).
You might ask this question on some language school/ESL forums (whether for teachers or students) in case there's something Japan-specific that's worth knowing.
posted by trig at 11:22 AM on December 13, 2021
If you go the bank route, you'll also want to look up their transfer fees (aside from their currency exchange fees).
You might ask this question on some language school/ESL forums (whether for teachers or students) in case there's something Japan-specific that's worth knowing.
posted by trig at 11:22 AM on December 13, 2021
Bank transfers will charge you and the recipient.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:34 AM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:34 AM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
To be specific, it's effectively a currency exchange fee, but not stated as such. They hide it by making the exchange at a worse rate than market rate. So, always check the xe.com rate and compare.
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:34 AM on December 13, 2021
posted by dum spiro spero at 11:34 AM on December 13, 2021
Yep, Wise (used to be TransferWise) will get it into their bank account for a little under $30, all in, at the market exchange rate.
posted by ambrosen at 12:43 PM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ambrosen at 12:43 PM on December 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
I've used Wise with great success. I don't know if you're located in the US, but my experience has been that US banks are not particularly familiar with doing international bank transfers of this sort -- or at least the teller at my local credit union looked thoroughly panicked the last time I came in and tried to explain what I needed to do (a transfer to an European bank to pay an invoice). Wise was a lot simpler (and cheaper, IIRC).
posted by pleasant_confusion at 3:42 PM on December 13, 2021
posted by pleasant_confusion at 3:42 PM on December 13, 2021
Duh. You state clearly that you're in the US. Sorry. Poor reading skills today.
posted by pleasant_confusion at 3:43 PM on December 13, 2021
posted by pleasant_confusion at 3:43 PM on December 13, 2021
Response by poster: Just following up on this in case folks find it later.
I created a Wise account which was pretty easy to do, but in order to transfer the funds from my Citibank account to the school in Japan I hit a few hurdles:
1. I was unable to enter the name of the school in the recipient form: when I entered it in katakana, the form told me to use latin characters, when I entered it in latin characters the form told me to use katakana. I emailed Wise support about this but have not heard back (it is now 3 days later). I also chatted with them (chat is unavailable over the weekend) but they were unable to resolve.
2. In order to fetch the funds from my Citibank account, Wise wanted to use a service called Plaid, which asked for my Citibank username and password. I have never been asked for the username and password to any account I have - let alone a banking one - so I created this follow-up question, in which folks mostly agreed that this is not cool. I also chatted with Wise support about this and they said "fair enough, but that's how it is", so I believe the best approach here is to push funds from your bank to Wise and then use it to make the transfer (if you can enter your recipient details!).
3. I had an old existing XE account which needed re-activating but was already connected to my Citibank account, so I also contacted them. Whereas Wise support took over half an hour to respond and were unable to resolve my recipient issue, XE support were fast and helpful, and although I had to jump through a few hoops to get my XE account back up and running, I was able to make the transfer the same day, and without providing my online bank username and password.
So: while I think Wise will be useful in the future, not feeling comfortable with a service which handles my money is not a good foundation, so I will defer to XE where possible. On that note, having confidence in being able to get hold of support in a reasonable time frame, and being able to get a resolution from support, was also a significant win for XE here.
posted by my log does not judge at 10:35 AM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
I created a Wise account which was pretty easy to do, but in order to transfer the funds from my Citibank account to the school in Japan I hit a few hurdles:
1. I was unable to enter the name of the school in the recipient form: when I entered it in katakana, the form told me to use latin characters, when I entered it in latin characters the form told me to use katakana. I emailed Wise support about this but have not heard back (it is now 3 days later). I also chatted with them (chat is unavailable over the weekend) but they were unable to resolve.
2. In order to fetch the funds from my Citibank account, Wise wanted to use a service called Plaid, which asked for my Citibank username and password. I have never been asked for the username and password to any account I have - let alone a banking one - so I created this follow-up question, in which folks mostly agreed that this is not cool. I also chatted with Wise support about this and they said "fair enough, but that's how it is", so I believe the best approach here is to push funds from your bank to Wise and then use it to make the transfer (if you can enter your recipient details!).
3. I had an old existing XE account which needed re-activating but was already connected to my Citibank account, so I also contacted them. Whereas Wise support took over half an hour to respond and were unable to resolve my recipient issue, XE support were fast and helpful, and although I had to jump through a few hoops to get my XE account back up and running, I was able to make the transfer the same day, and without providing my online bank username and password.
So: while I think Wise will be useful in the future, not feeling comfortable with a service which handles my money is not a good foundation, so I will defer to XE where possible. On that note, having confidence in being able to get hold of support in a reasonable time frame, and being able to get a resolution from support, was also a significant win for XE here.
posted by my log does not judge at 10:35 AM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by wnissen at 11:06 AM on December 13, 2021