Hey guys!
Tax season is starting for most of us, and today, after calculating how much money I made last year, I started thinking about the money I did NOT make -- whatever Paypal keeps as hidden currency conversion fees, for instance! (Some say it's 2%, some say it's 2,5%...)
I was wondering what Skrill users had to say about using that service for Gengo payouts, how much hidden or openly disclosed fees they were paying for currency conversion and transfers to their bank account, and which service lets us Gengo freelancers keep the most money from our well-deserved earnings.
Would anyone like to share their knowledge, thoughts and experience on this subject? Thanks!
1 comment
Hi,
PayPal's conversion fee should be 2.5% when you have to convert money already in your account. See: "For currency conversions that occur within your PayPal account outside and/or prior to a Personal or Commercial Transaction (“In Account”) (converting balances to other currencies before withdrawal for example), as well as for transactions involving a currency conversion for which the seller has agreed to bear the conversion fee
2.5% above the wholesale exchange rate" - https://cms.paypal.com/gf/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=ua/UserAgreement_popup&locale.x=en_US#Schedule 1. Table of Fees - more or less what a bank could charge for conversion...
I never used Skrill myself, but: "For transactions involving currency conversion Skrill adds a fee of between 2.99% and 4.99%** to the wholesale exchange rate we offer." (**We charge an additional 2.99% for transfers between USD, GBP, EUR, CAD or PLN currencies. 3.99% for transfers between USD, GBP, EUR, CAD, PLN and any other currency. 4.99% for transfers involving any other currency – this fee will change to 3.99% from 25th January 2016.) - https://www.skrill.com/en/fees/ so that sounds even worse than PayPal...
I found an interesting comparison of conversion fees here: https://www.currencyfair.com/blog/money-transfer-companies-compared/ (although it seems to refer to a conversion made by the payer, not the payee, as in our case).
It looks like this "Currency Fair" is a legitimate business. I had actually never hear of them before, but it sounds like being able to exchange funds with them would be a (much) less expensive way to go (if it were possible...). Something like 0.5% at most. I just gave it a cursory look, so I'm not even sure how this works exactly, but maybe Gengo could look into it...