If you pay overseas suppliers, contractors, or staff, the headline fee tells you almost nothing about what a transfer costs — the real money sits in the exchange rate.
You’ll see how transfers work, what they actually cost, how to send for less, and how your money is protected — we checked every figure against provider pricing, the FCA, and the Bank of England in June 2026.
How International Money Transfers Work
Two different systems move your money abroad, and which one a provider uses decides how fast and how cheap the transfer is.
If you send a traditional bank wire, it runs over SWIFT — a messaging network linking 11,000-plus institutions. SWIFT doesn’t move the cash; it passes instructions between banks, and the money hops through one or more “correspondent” banks to reach the destination.
That hopping is why bank wires are slow and lossy: a SWIFT payment typically settles in 1 to 5 business days, and each correspondent bank can skim a handling (“lifting”) fee of £10–£40 — unless you pick the “OUR” charge code and pay them upfront.
Fintechs like Wise, Revolut, and Airwallex skip SWIFT for major routes. They hold local accounts in each country, so when a euro invoice lands, they take your pounds over Faster Payments and pay euros out over local European rails.
Because the money never crosses a border, you usually get it same-day or within minutes.
What an International Transfer Really Costs
You’re charged two things, not one: an FX margin plus an explicit fee, and the margin is usually the bigger number.
The mid-market rate is the real, wholesale rate — the one you see on Google. Your provider adds a markup (the “spread”), and that’s a cost you never see itemised.
Banks don’t publish the spread, but independent comparison services put high-street FX margins at 2.5% to 4% above the mid-market rate. When you pay a £20,000 supplier invoice at month-end, a 3% margin costs you £600 — far more than any wire fee. That’s where we’d look first.
Be wary if you see “fee-free”: a provider advertising zero commission usually just widens the margin instead, so the cost moves into a rate you can’t see. The explicit fee — often £15–£30 on a bank wire — is the small part. That’s the catch.
How to Send Money Abroad More Cheaply
Compare the amount received, never the fee — put the same sum into two providers and see which deposits more in your recipient’s account. That single number nets the fee and the margin together, and we rate it the only honest comparison.
- Use a mid-market provider. Wise converts at the mid-market rate with no margin and charges a transparent fee — typically 0.33% to 0.57% on major routes (0.37% GBP to EUR). On a £20,000 payment that’s £74, against £600 at a 3% bank margin.
- Send in the recipient’s currency. If you send pounds to a dollar account, the receiving bank converts at its own punitive rate — a double conversion. Send dollars to a dollar account instead.
- Route through local rails. A multi-currency account that pays out locally avoids receiving-bank deductions altogether.
- Check who pays the intermediary fees. The “OUR” charge code bills correspondent-bank fees to you upfront, so the full amount reaches the recipient.
Picture sending your supplier their money through Wise and a high-street bank on a Friday morning: the amount that lands can differ by hundreds.
The margin costs you. The fee just distracts.
Is Your Money Safe? FCA Safeguarding vs FSCS
Check the provider on the FCA Register before you send a penny — we always do — and know which kind of protection you’re getting, because a fintech and a bank protect your money very differently.
A UK bank gives you FSCS deposit protection: if it fails, the scheme reimburses eligible deposits automatically, now up to £120,000 per person per firm (raised from £85,000 on 1 December 2025).
If you use Wise, Airwallex, or OFX, you’re with an e-money or payment institution, not a bank, so FSCS doesn’t apply. Instead they safeguard your funds: your money is segregated from theirs, ring-fenced at a separate bank, and can’t be lent out.
We’d check which protection applies to you, though: Revolut, for one, now holds a full UK banking licence, so its UK accounts are FSCS-protected.
Leave your float in a fintech account over month-end, and that balance is safeguarded, not FSCS-protected — so it pays to know the difference.
Safeguarding protects you, but it isn’t the same as FSCS. If you ever need it, the ring-fenced pool repays customers when the firm fails — but slowly, and an administrator’s costs can come out first, so you might not get back 100%.
From 7 May 2026 the FCA’s PS25/12 rules tightened safeguarding further: firms now reconcile customer funds daily, larger firms face an annual safeguarding audit, and all must keep a “resolution pack” so an administrator can return money quickly.
Locking In a Rate: Forward Contracts and Hedging
If you’re a business with a known overseas cost coming, you can fix the rate now rather than gamble on the market — for a big, fixed invoice, we would. Specialist FX providers offer hedging tools that ordinary transfer apps don’t.
A forward contract locks today’s rate for a payment that settles later, so when you pay that supplier invoice months from now, the cost is already fixed.
If you want certainty, OFX locks rates up to 12 months out and Moneycorp up to 24 months, usually for an upfront deposit. You’re protected if the rate moves against you, but you don’t gain if it moves your way.
A limit order targets a better rate than today’s: the provider watches the market and executes automatically if your rate is hit. A stop-loss does the reverse, triggering a transfer if the rate falls to your worst-case level so a slide can’t run away from you.
International Money Transfer FAQs
How long does an international money transfer take?
It depends on the rails you use. If you send a traditional bank wire over SWIFT, expect 1 to 5 business days, because the money passes through correspondent banks. If you use a fintech on local payment rails — Wise, Revolut, Airwallex — you often get major-currency transfers the same day or within minutes, because the money never actually crosses a border.
Is it safe to send money with a provider that isn’t a bank?
Yes, with a caveat. Providers like Wise, Airwallex, and OFX are FCA-authorised e-money or payment institutions that must safeguard your funds — segregated from their own money and ring-fenced at a bank. That isn’t FSCS deposit protection (which covers up to £120,000 at a UK bank), and on a firm failure recovery can be slower and may fall short of 100%. Status can change — Revolut, for example, now holds a full UK banking licence — so check the firm on the FCA Register first.
What is the cheapest way to send money abroad?
Compare the amount that lands in the recipient’s account, not the advertised fee, because most of the cost hides in the exchange-rate margin. A mid-market provider such as Wise (0.33% to 0.57% on major routes, no margin) usually beats a high-street bank that bundles a 2.5% to 4% margin into the rate. If you send in the recipient’s local currency, you also avoid a second conversion at the receiving bank.
Methodology and Disclosure
Sources: We verified the regulatory points against the FCA and the Bank of England, and the provider pricing (Wise, Airwallex, OFX, Moneycorp) against each provider’s own pages, in June 2026.
The FSCS limit (£120,000 from 1 December 2025) and the PS25/12 safeguarding rules (in force 7 May 2026) are confirmed against primary regulator sources.
FX margins: High-street bank FX margins aren’t published by the banks, which bundle the spread into a dynamic rate; the 2.5% to 4% range reflects independent comparison-service estimates, not a bank-published figure.
Not advice: This is editorial guidance, not regulated financial advice. Confirm current rates, fees, and protections with each provider before sending.
Affiliate disclosure: BusinessExpert may receive referral fees from some providers mentioned on this page. This doesn’t affect our editorial assessments.