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Getting paid in foreign currencies, part 2: Borderless accounts from TransferWise

Transferwise is now offering the option to create a borderless account. This allows you to have bank accounts in euros, pounds and US dollars, as shown in the infographic below (click to zoom in). More currencies are likely to be added in due course.

TransferWise borderless accounts
Infographic provided by iCompareFX.com

In a sense, this is similar to what you can already do with many more currencies with CurrencyFair (see my previous post), which already lets you store money in different currencies. The difference, though, is that you actually receive your own, personal bank account number in your clients’ countries, so unlike with CurrencyFair, you won’t have to worry about your client entering the correct reference number.

At the time of writing, the new borderless account is available to anyone living in the European Economic Area, except those living in Cyprus (i.e. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom). It is also available to residents of Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Switzerland, India, the Philippines, the British Virgin Islands, and some, but not all, states of the United States of America.

Since this is an actual bank account with a bank account number, as I understand it you can even use your account to make payments. Imagine you live in the UK, but you have a client in France, and you attend an annual conference in Germany. In the past, you’d get charged for converting your euros to pounds, and then charged again for converting them back to euros. Now, you can just keep your money in your borderless account in euros and pay the fee for your conference in Germany in euros. Of course, if you do need to move the money to the UK, you can still do an exchange on TransferWise for a much smaller fee than you’d pay with a bank.

Reports suggests that TransferWise will also introduce a payment card in the near future, making it even easier to spend the money you earn in foreign currencies.

To sign up for TransferWise, please use this link, which will give you a free transfer for up to £500 or equivalent, and will earn my £50 for every three sign-ups.

More info on borderless accounts is available here, but please use my referral link if you decide to sign up!

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