Transferring money, fund-raising, or payments for abroad has always been an expensive enterprise. As I have set up the Satipo road community hostel project on Kolibri Expeditions’s blog with different models of fundraising, it was quite annoying to see that as much as 10% of the funds would disappear in various types of fees and intermediary banks.
Friends have been raving about sending money with Transferwise, but until recently it did not work that well with Peru. That is not the case now, but first, let me go through the options for receiving funding to Peru.
Bank transfer
Our checking account for Kolibri Expeditions has always been in US$, as we have priced our trips in dollars, and the currency is easily converted in Peru. However, when clients send money via SWIFT transfer directly to our account there are quite large fees. First, there is a fee from your bank, and there is a fee by our bank. We tell the clients to cover both these fees. But there is also an intermediary bank that wants a cut, and it is very hard to tell how large this cut will be, and there is no way to prepay it, because nobody seems to know how much it will be. For instance, $890 was sent to us in November 2019, and only $812 arrived, and on top of that, there was a fee of the issuing bank. $78 dollars in fees!
What I have learned the last couple of days is that intermediary bank fees can be avoided by having an account in Peruvian Soles, then the intermediary fees are totally avoided.
When sending larger amounts of say $5000-10000 to pay for the complete tour for a party, then the intermediary fee is more manageable. We still have a lot of our payments that we have to do in US$ so we can’t skip the USD account completely.
For amounts less than $2000 dollars is where Transferwise works best.
Fundraising
For the Satipo road project, it is unlikely that any individual will donate larger amount, why different platforms such as GoFundMe, VAKI or even Paypal traditionally have been preferred by me in the past. However, before the money has reached Peru there are about 10% fees for VAKI and 7.5% for Paypal. GoFundMe that I used earlier does not work in Peru now.
Transferwise
Sending between $200-$1900 Transferwise is a new much less expensive way to send money to us. The fee is less than 5% and close to 3% with $1000, as in the example in the headline. The current rate here in Peru is 1USD=3.53 soles. For the time being, I only have a personal Soles account, but once the pandemic is over and business starts picking up, I will ad also a company checking account in Soles.
Use either of these accounts, sending Soles for an amount between $200-$1900. This is best used for deposits for your future trip with us, and helps us stay afloat during the pandemic. You can simply enter Transferwise and send in your own currency and it shall be transferred to Soles by my bank.
Use either of these two accounts in the name of
Lars Gunnar Engblom
Nationality: Swedish
Carnet de Extranjeria 00881166
Occupation: Biologist
Interbank account number 297-3082928396
Banco de Credito del Peru (BCP) account number 194-40354415-0-34
If you are going to deposit the equivalent of £200-£500, I have 3 invitation links to deposit for free, use that and I’d get an additional reward of £50 for recommending a service and to be used for the project. Sounds like a good deal.
Fundraising with Transferwise
For smaller between $3-$150 and more typical of a fund-raiser, I have created “borderless” accounts at Transferwise in USD, GBP, NZD, AUD, and EUR.
If you live in the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, or in Europe (also outside the Euro Zone for Euro deposits), you can make small deposits to these accounts free of charge. I am listing the accounts below.
Add 3% to cover the charge for me to bring the money to Peru once each account reaches around the value of US$300. Since it is so easy to donate this way and in your own currency, I hope that you will tell invite your friends to consider a donation this way.
US Dollars
It works best if you live in the US and use an ACH transfer from your own checking account directly to the account below. Some countries like Canada can also make ACH transfers if they set up a Transferwise account themselves.
Euros
From any country within the Single Euro Payment Areas (SEPA) using the IBAN number, you can make a transfer in Euro free of charge from your own bank account.
UK Pounds – Sterling
Only from within the UK.
Australian Dollars AUD
From Australia use the following bank account.
New Zealand Dollars
From New Zealand use the following bank account to transfer NZD to my NZD account at Transferwise.
Much smaller amount or donations from Latin America
If you want to donate between US$1-US$3, then Paypal is the best (7.5% commissions/fees. The Vaki-platform may be best for South America, because they have various platforms for receiving money that work within Latin America. The base fee for Vaki is 6%, but they are added costs for depositing to the Vaki site like a 3% for credit card, as well as fees transferring to my bank. I will change the current US$ bank account, that I have associated with the account, to one in Peruvian Soles, so there will be smaller fees transferring any money to Peru.
, says Noah.