Sorry if this is the wrong place, but here it goes:
What would be the best (and cheapest) way to withdraw cash? Let say, from Sepa enabled EU based bank/EMI?
Debit cards often have about 2% fee for ATM withdrawals, which is already quite much if you need, let say 5000 euros (whopping 100 euros in that case).
Recently, I tried Azimo while travelling in Belarus. I sent some EUR to myself on their site and chose cash pickup from local bank in EUR. Please note, I sent EUR and picked up EUR. This is not always available as money transfer services want to earn from hidden currency exchange fees by offering a bad rate. I paid for the transfer with Transferwise Debit card.
Absolutely no fee at all! I got every single euro what was debited from Transferwise account to my hand. Process was relatively easy and quick. Regular fee for such transfer was something like 2.99 EUR, but they had introductionary offer for new users, 2 free tranfers.
With - let say, 1000 EUR, that fee would make just 0,299% so much less than the ATM fee. Problem here is that probably you can't send very big amounts, let say over 2000 or 5000 EUR (due to debit card transaction size limits), but you can always make few different transfers while visiting different countries, should be safer too.
Second option I have considered is Eurex money exchange in Estonia - they have cash pickup service that works with Sepa transfer. I once had a talk at their "branch" and they said I should just email/call them and book some amount. As soon as the transfer is visible, they will give the cash out in EUR. I imagine this would work well for bigger amounts, like 10000 or 50000 EUR, but I haven't tried that.
Their fee is 0,3%, min 5€, so for example taking out 10000 eur would cost 15 eur. Pretty reasonable, I guess. I haven't tried it, but I am curious.
Obviously, I am not suggesting travelling to some country just for the cash, but if you have travelling life style anyway, taking care of cash needs while having it is just practical.
I guess there are a lot of people who have the opposite problem, they have cash they would like to get deposited to a bank. Cheapest way of course would be to co-operate with such party, but maybe bit risky and difficult to find.
Oh, totally forgot. Lithuanian based Paysera has some interesting options in Lithuania. First of all, they offer 0,45% fee at their own office for business customers, but also 0,5e flat fee at Narvesen kiosks (all over Lithuana) for amounts up to 500 eur. That is just 0,1% in that case!
What would be the best (and cheapest) way to withdraw cash? Let say, from Sepa enabled EU based bank/EMI?
Debit cards often have about 2% fee for ATM withdrawals, which is already quite much if you need, let say 5000 euros (whopping 100 euros in that case).
Recently, I tried Azimo while travelling in Belarus. I sent some EUR to myself on their site and chose cash pickup from local bank in EUR. Please note, I sent EUR and picked up EUR. This is not always available as money transfer services want to earn from hidden currency exchange fees by offering a bad rate. I paid for the transfer with Transferwise Debit card.
Absolutely no fee at all! I got every single euro what was debited from Transferwise account to my hand. Process was relatively easy and quick. Regular fee for such transfer was something like 2.99 EUR, but they had introductionary offer for new users, 2 free tranfers.
With - let say, 1000 EUR, that fee would make just 0,299% so much less than the ATM fee. Problem here is that probably you can't send very big amounts, let say over 2000 or 5000 EUR (due to debit card transaction size limits), but you can always make few different transfers while visiting different countries, should be safer too.
Second option I have considered is Eurex money exchange in Estonia - they have cash pickup service that works with Sepa transfer. I once had a talk at their "branch" and they said I should just email/call them and book some amount. As soon as the transfer is visible, they will give the cash out in EUR. I imagine this would work well for bigger amounts, like 10000 or 50000 EUR, but I haven't tried that.
Their fee is 0,3%, min 5€, so for example taking out 10000 eur would cost 15 eur. Pretty reasonable, I guess. I haven't tried it, but I am curious.
Obviously, I am not suggesting travelling to some country just for the cash, but if you have travelling life style anyway, taking care of cash needs while having it is just practical.
I guess there are a lot of people who have the opposite problem, they have cash they would like to get deposited to a bank. Cheapest way of course would be to co-operate with such party, but maybe bit risky and difficult to find.
Oh, totally forgot. Lithuanian based Paysera has some interesting options in Lithuania. First of all, they offer 0,45% fee at their own office for business customers, but also 0,5e flat fee at Narvesen kiosks (all over Lithuana) for amounts up to 500 eur. That is just 0,1% in that case!
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