If your aim is to find the best foreign exchange rates for bank transfers to an account abroad or domestically, then you already know how much finding a better fx rates than the bank’s is going to save you. As a rough estimate using a bank-alternative provider can save customers from regions such as UK, USA, Australia, Asia or EU more than 50% of all associated bank transfer costs, together with several other benefits which we will briefly touch in this guide.

Best FX Rates for Bank Transfers Currently (Bank Alternatives)

If you are looking to make a large international money transfer please view our list of best international money transfer companies and currency brokers by overall rating below. This list integrates many other considerations that are supplementary to the best exchange rates for bank to bank transfers. For example, these companies offer dedicated dealer support that can help you get better rates, set up rate alerts and also, importantly, you can negotiate the exchange rate offered and potentially get a better deal than the default via direct communications.

Payment Specialists with Bank Beating FX Rates  March 2023

• Min Transfer: £/€/$ 100
• Currencies Supported: 39
• Offices : UK, EU, USA, India, South Africa.
• Our Rating : 97.8%
• Most Global Offices and Reach
  
  No Fees from Anywhere and Competitive Rates
  
  96% Client Satisfaction
• Currencies Direct Review

Free Instant Quote

• Min Transfer: £/€ 100
• Currencies Supported: 40
• Offices : UK, EU, Singapore, and Australia.
• Our Rating : 93.4%
• High Quality Bespoke Service
  
  MoneyFact's Best Provider Award
  
  Over 100 Years of FX Experience Across Its Trading Desk
• TorFX Review

Free Instant Quote

• Min Transfer: £/€/$ 50
• Currencies Supported: 120
• Offices : UK, EU, USA, HK, and UAE.
• Our Rating : 92.8%
• Business Oriented, Many High Profile Business Customers
  
  Industry Veteran since 1979
  
  Diverse Hedging Options and Excellent Guidance
• Moneycorp Review

Free Instant Quote

• Min Transfer: £/€ 1,000
• Currencies Supported: 70
• Offices : UK, Spain, Netherlands, and Canada.
• Our Rating : 90.6%
• Very Experienced Staff
  
  99% Positive Customer Reviews Online
  
  12 Luxurious Industry Awards
• Global Reach Group Review

Free Instant Quote

• Min Transfer: £/€ 1,000
• Currencies Supported: 34
• Offices : UK and EU.
• Our Rating : 90.4%
• #1 Rated Money Transfer on TrustPilot
  
  Friendly Customer Service
  
  Fast Sign-Up
• Currency Solutions Review

Free Instant Quote

• Min Transfer: £/€/$ 50
• Currencies Supported: 30
• Offices : UK.
• Our Rating : 87.6%
• Extremely Tailored Service
  
  Multiple Industry Awards
  
  Highly Positive Client Reviews
• Halo Financial Review

Free Instant Quote

How to Currency Exchange Rates Work at All?

The official currency exchange rate is the real mid-market price in which banks trade currency in between themselves or the central bank. What do we mean by mid-rate? Currencies trade in the same fashion as other assets, so by mid-market we mean the price of the last deal that was made (a deal is made when the ASK price meets the BID price between two parties).

When you’re reading the morning news, or hearing some gloom and doom story over the television, when reports would mention “the rate” or the “official exchange rate” they mean exactly that. The interbank or mid-market rate. The acceptable rate as reflected by the latest deal between banks. The official interbank is not the best forex rate achievable for private clients.

Markup: The Bank’s Buy and Sell Rate

However, that interbank exchange  rate is not the same as the foreign exchange rates offered to private or corporate clients. Even a very large corporation, trading massive amounts of foreign exchange, using the best money transfer company or a bank’s corporate desk, isn’t going to get the exact interbank rate. Just like with any service there are costs to provide it – whether that be the investment in the currency trading infrastructure, regulatory and compliance requirements or simply staff costs we have to understand banks aren’t able to provide the service for nothing.

There will always be a SPREAD added into the mix, and our only gripe is that banks are often charging a far higher spread than is necessary to cover their costs and make a small profit. The spread is usually shown in percentages. A 0.5% spread means the amount of foreign currency you’ll receive in the deal will be 0.5% less of what you would have received if you were trading at official interbank exchange rates. In almost all cases, both for private individuals and most businesses, the banks exchange rates are the worst on offer. This is because a standard bank spread in the UK will be between 2-3% (for pairs like Pound v Euro or Pound v Dollar, or an even higher spread potentially for trades involving more exotic currencies). You can read more about that aspect above on the best fx rate for international money transfers comparison.

Buy/Sell currency spreads existing in cryptocurrencies too

Similarly to fiat currency exchanges, cryptocurrency brokers, exchanges, and sellers are also embedding a markup into their sales. Some customers believe they can circumvent the costs of foreign exchange by using cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, , Ripple, ethereum or Cardano for international transfers, but the truth is that the costs of exchanging fiat money for crypto as even higher than the cost of exchanging domestic money into foreign currency. While we have shown above that the best foreign exchange rate for businesses with WorldFirst will cost 0.15% to 0.5% per exchange, popular cryptocurrency exchanges would charge between 1.5% (using PayPal’s new Crypto option) and 5% (most local Crypto brokers), per exchange of GBPBTC/GBPETH or any other pairing.

Approximated Best Exchange Rates Possible (Vs Banks)

* Current rates provided to us by external provider, updated hourly.
** Represeting a 2%-3% bank margin, which is the average bank margin in the UK for internaional currency exchanges based on our indepedent research.
*** Representing a margin of 0.5% to 1% which is the average margin for most trades with brokerages.

Flexible Spreads with Brokerages

As mentioned in the above section the price you will be paying for your transfer in the form of foreign exchange spreads (the bank’s or the provider’s “offered exchange rate” is actually consisting of a spread integrated into it) will vary based on the circumstances of your trade.

First off there is a different spread altogether which varies between a spot trade (exchange money today) and a forward contract (pay a deposit on a transfer that will take place years into the future with a fixed exchange rate).

Secondly, some currencies are just more expensive than other to handle. Major currencies as per definition such as the following pairings: EURUSD, USDJPY, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF, NZDUSD are going to, on average, be less costly than exotic currencies. Example of exotic currency pairings would be GBPAED, EURAED, GBPILS, GBPZAR, and these on average have slightly higher spreads because they are less “liquid” i.e. associated with more costs and risks for the bank or provider (this is how foreign exchnge companies make money, and they have to be careful not to take unnceseccary fx risks themselves).

Thirdly, brokers tend to offer better deals based on volumes. The best foreign exchange rates offered to someone exchanging or transferring £10,000 will not be as to someone exchanging £100,000. Moreover, one of the advantages of moving big volumes is that it’s possible to negotiate the exchange rate offered. The best way to do that  first off get a quote from your bank but the way banks obfuscate the actual exchange rates offered could be tricky, so this stage can be skipped. The next stage, would be to get a clear quote from another broker (or multiple brokerages) so you’d have a idea where you’re standing. You could also easily colate exchange rate quotes easily enough through online money transfer providers which are cheap and straightforward (but you should know that in some cases brokers won’t be able to match an fx rate that good, and it could still “make sense” to use a broker considering the added values of using a broker vs an online platform, in spite of not obtaining the absolute optimal exchange rate obtainable at the moment).

Rate Alerts – A Powerful Tool

One added value when using a currency broker is to have the ability to subscribe to the exchange rates. For example, if you want to exchange Euro to USD, but that is not an urgent requirement and you are waiting until the EURUSD exchange rate will improve, you can set up a rate alert – a nifty little tool that you can either setup online or through your dedicated currency dealer, in which you ask to execute a certain trade when a certain rate has been hit (or get a phone call to set up a trade when the foreign exchange rates are near where you want them to be).

As much as having lower spreads i.e. obtaining the best fx rate possible of all banks and providers, matter, trading currencies as the right timing could save up as much money for you.

Check Your Spreads on Each Trade

The fact a certain broker made a deal with you with a certain margin you were happy with does not mean the broker will continue to honour the same spreads on each trade you made (unless you have been directly communicated that, which would be very rare of a broker to commit considering their own costs and risks can change over time and impact their spreads – even the world famous cash-strapped Wise have ramped up their margins more than once).

That means it would be a good idea to check for each individual trade what was the margin that was applied and whether the exchange rates offered by that broker are still the best in the market. As recommended in this guide, it is never a bad idea to contact another broker, compare the rates, and potentially go back to your broker to renegotiate the exchange rate markups applied to your trades.

Best Euro, USD, AUD and Sterling Rates: Same Path to Follow

It doesn’t matter if you try to find the best bank exchange rates for your Pound Sterling, Euro, Dollar or any other currency because the options we have covered on this guide will handle the majority of currencies and countries. You will have to follow the same path to obtain the best gbpeur rate, the best gbpusd rate, the best eurusd rate, or any other currency pairing.

How to Make Currency Predictions?

One of the absolute best ways to obtain the best currency exchange rate for your tranfer or trade is to simply make the transaction at the optimal timing in which the relative currency exchagne rate between the currency you are exchanging and the currency you are receiving is the highest. For example, if you traded your GBP to EUR on August 22, 2022, you would have had the best rate of that year (about 1.20). Simply by trading at another time, say a month later circa Sept 11, 2022, you would have only received 1.11 Euro for each Pound Sterling traded. In other words, within 1 month apart, you could have as much as 10% different on the exchange rates.

As mentioned above, rate alerts can be a really good idea to stay in tune with the market and particularly since you can set it to notify you only on specific currency pairings, the tool by itself does not give you forward judgement on the currency rate, it just tells you what’s the current rate.

It can be difficult and tricky to make accurate predictions regarding currency exchange rates, but it may be possible. There are certain things to learn and here are some useful guides on learning how currencies behave and work.

How to Fix the Best Exchange Rate?

If you believe that you are currently enjoying the best USD rate, for example, against the Pound Sterling, then you could switch from Spot Contract (trading currencies right now) into a Forward Contract (fixing current rates for a period of between months and years moving forward). Hedging tools like Forward can be a very useful tool in the array of the currency trader, and are very heavily used by international companeis and HNW. It is for the most part, a useful tool to protect against volatility and uncertainty.

2022 – The Year of Currency Volatility

The world’s forex market was impacted by various factors in 2022, including the Russia/Ukraine War, post-COVID-19 monetary policy, global recession, and disjointed commodities prices. The five most volatile major currencies in 2022 were the United States Dollar (USD), Euro (EUR), British Pound Sterling (GBP), Australian Dollar (AUD), and Canadian Dollar (CAD). The USD became volatile due to the Federal Reserve’s shift in policy from accommodative to restrictive to combat inflation. The EUR experienced significant price action due to the European Central Bank’s policy response to rising inflation and recession concerns. The GBP was impacted by Brexit uncertainty and UK’s monetary policy response to inflation. The AUD was driven by the rise in commodity prices, especially iron ore and coal. The CAD was impacted by rising crude oil prices and the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy response to inflation.

Best Exchange Rates for Small Transfers and Remittances?

If you are looking to make a small payment online, or send remittances, then you should consider using Wise (formerly TransferWise) because they have fixed GREAT fx exchange rates (whereas other companies have a system in place in which larger transfers get bigger discounts).

Currency Sent	Wise’s Fee (Lowest for Low Value Transfers)
AUD	0.32% – 0.45%, depending on amount sent + $ 0.66 AUD fixed payment fee. Best Australian dollar rates for international transfers from Australia.
BRL	2.07-2.14%, depending on the amount sent + R$ 4.26 BRL fixed payment fee. Best BRL rates.
CAD	0.37% – 0.53%, depending on the amount sent + $ 3.47 CAD fixed payment fee. Best CAD rates for international money transfers from Canada.
CHF	0.28% – 0.42%, depending on the amount sentr + 0.75 CHF fixed payment fee. Best CHF rates for money transfers from Switzerland.
CZK	0.34% – 0.47%, depending on the amount sent + Kč 7.39 CZK fixed payment fee. Best CZK rates.
DKK	0.36% – 0.49%, depending on the amount sent + kr 2.67 DKK. Best Danish Kroner rates.
EUR	0.31% – 0.47%, depending on the amount sent + € 0.46 EUR fixed payment fee. Best Euro rates for transferring money from Europe and to Europe.
JPN	0.72% of the amount that’s converted + ¥ 91.00 JPY fixed payment fee. Best Japanese Yen Rates.
NZD	0.35% – 0.45%, depending on the amount sent + $ 0.41 NZD fixed payment fee. Best NZD rates.
TRY	1.03% Fee + ₺ 21.78 TRY fixed payment fee. These are not the best TRY rates currently available online.
USD	0.31% – 0.47%, depending on the amount sent + $4.25 USD fixed payment fee. Best USD rates for international money transfers from USA.

Razor-Sharp Spreads, Excellent FX Rates, But…

As noted earlier in this guide, Wise’s fees (which are all incluive of all fees associted with the transfer  other than if you use a debit card or a credit card to fund the transfer, in which case you could end up paying an extra 2-3%) are really good. You could say that other than in some rare cases (like online competitor Currencyfair on some currency routes), these are the best foreign exchange rates for an online transfer, especialy for lower-value transfers (which could be expensive using a brokerage).

So, if Wise’s exchange rate and fees are so good, why recommend alternative providers for larger transfers?

• • Wise is an online-only operation which is simply less adequate for many of our readers who want to be contacted locally the currency experts rather than Do It Yourself.
  • With Wise, because there are no currency dealers helping you out, it’s more difficult to follow rates and exchange at an optimal timing (unless you DIY).
  • With Wise, there are slightly better fees for those transferring large volumes, but since spreads are not flexible, it is possible to achieve a better-than-Wise exchange rate using a broker.
  • With Wise, there are no Forward Contract available. Forward Contract can often be the best, most risk averse, way to hadle a large payment due in the future.
  • With Wise the fx rates offered for business payments are not as good as WorldFirst for large volumes.

Wise Alternatives with Similar FX Spreads

As a whole OFX can be a little less cheap than Wise when it comes to its FX rates, but it’s a better rated brand by us and their exchange rates are great, have a look below:

Amount:

Currency From: British PoundEuroUS DollarAustralian DollarNew Zealand DollarSingapore DollarHong Kong DollarUnited Arab Emirates DirhamIsraeli ShekelsSwedish KronerNorwegian KroneDanish KroneSwiss Francs

Currency To: British PoundEuroUS DollarAustralian DollarNew Zealand DollarSingapore DollarHong Kong DollarUnited Arab Emirates DirhamIsraeli ShekelsSwedish KronerNorwegian KroneDanish KroneSwiss Francs

Interbank Rate:

1.14

Interbank X Amount:

11,408.01

EUR

Bank Wire Fees:

15

GBP

OFX Wire Fees:

0

GBP

Bank Rate:

1.116

OFX Rate:

1.127

You Get With Bank:

11,140.30

EUR

You Get with OFX:

11,267.69

EUR

⤏

You Save: 127.39 EUR

Visit OFX.com 🌎 Read more about OFX here

Disclaimers and such:

• • 1. Interbank rates used by this calculator were obtained through a third party service. This service can be delayed, inaccurate or unavailable and we do not assume responsibility if some some reason the current interbank rates are not correct.
    2. OFX rates were done through sampling the rates offered for an individual using the OFX system; we applied their fees (which are always $0) and the spreads to the current interbank rate. These are purely indicative rates and you would only know the actual bottom-line trade after you have signed up with them and received a quote from them. Neither MoneyTransferComparison nor OFX commits to transact at the rate displayed. With that being said, these rates should be around accurate.
    3. Bank rates and fees were done through extensive sampling and applying the fees and rates based on currency pairings to the current interbank rates. Your bank may have better or worse rates than the ones displayed. We recommend that while using this money transfer fee calculator you would log into your bank’s website and see how much currency you are getting for your currency from them.
    4. Hence, saving displayed is purely indicative.

How to Determine Future Exchange Rates

Other than following publications like Bloomberg and keep a tab with the news you could also educate yourself on the movement of currency exchange rates. Your can formulate your own Pound Sterling forecasts, Euro rate forecast, US dollar exchange forecast, or other currencies you are dealing with, by learning more on how currency exchange rates move:

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Best Exchange Rates for Businesses and Online Sellers:

When you are a business or an online seller, we believe that getting the best exchange rates has a whole different meaning.

Yes, similarly to large bank transfers or smaller transfers the actual margins applied to the FX rate is significant but there are added features that could impact the exchange rate to a greater degree.

How to get a better exchagne rate as a business?

1) Have someone to speak to on the other hand that will negotiate the margins with you. As a business it wouldn’t be unheard of to see margins of lower than 0.5% across all currencies and as low as 0.2% for large clients and corporations. For example, WorldFirst used to publish their margins/rates online (they no longer do) and this is how it looked:

Indicative Rates for Business FX Rates

While these margins, which used to be be the best business FX rates bar none, are no longer in effect (or not advertised on Worldfirst’s website anymore), you could use these rates could be an indication of the margins you would negotiate with your business fx provider.

2) Use limit order – a limit order essentially means “buy a certain currency” or “sell a certain currency” when the currency foreign exchagne rate is at a certain point. The risk of using a limit order is that it may never come into effect (if the desired rate doesn’t hit) but in very volatile periods, a well placed limit order can definitely get the best fx rate in a sense that if the limit order is placed to a rate that is BETTER than the current interbank, it means the exchange rate for your bank transfer surpasses any rate possible today.

3) Similarly to the last point, using fx hedging solutions like booking a Forward Contract can prove to be a lot more significant than the FX spread that is applied to the exchange rate; by booking a Forward you could fix today’s rate for a period of 12 or even 24 months into the future and (if you made the right prediction) get a much better exchangte rate than you would have (if the rates worsened during this period).

To summarize, the most important thing when it comes to business transfer exchange rates many not be the actual spread offered by a certain provider but rather the level, quality and diversity of service.

If you need to get the best rate for receiving large amounts from abroad then you should consider inquiring about Multi-Currency virtual bank accounts. WorldFirst also boasts such a virtual currency account for its business clients, and it’s one of the best EUR accounts and best USD accounts as per our comparison.

Best Exchange Rates for Travelers

Although the focus of Money Transfer Comparison is strictly for international money transers from one bank account to another bank account, there is a great deal of demand for the best exchange rates for travel, and one of the companies we have covered extensively on our guide offers just that.

Wise Multi-Currency Card

The aforementioned Wise offers more functionality for its customes than a simple online money transfer service with superb foreign exchange rates. It also enables customers to collect payments from abroad and store funds in 8 different currencies on their Wise international account. In practice, Wise’s multi-currency account is a form of a virtual bank account – and the kicker is, for travelers specifically, that customers in UK, EU, USA and Australia (as well as multiple other countries) are able to issue a multi-currency card attached to that virtual bank account. That card has no FX exchange rate fees and debits one’s wise account automatically.

For example, if you are in the UK and traveling to Europe, you could get the best GBPEUR exchange rate by transferring money to your Wise account, exchange it to Euros, and then spend it in Euros via the Wise Multi-Currency Account and Debit Card.

The New Best Exchange Rate Model?

An innovation that has come into this convulted industry where hunderds of banks and providers operate is a fixed-payment subscription to use a money transfer service which grants customers  with the actual, interbank, foreign exchange rates. Sokin Money Transfer is a money transfer provider that was estbalished in 2019 but hasn’t launched until 2021 which offers excactly that. For a mere amount of £10 a month, you will grant access, as per Sokin to:

• Free when receiving money
• Free virtual wallet
• Free IBAN Account
• Free virtual payment card
• 86% recycled Sokin debit card
• Send money to 200+ countries
• Exchange 38+ currencies
• Priority customer support
• Multiple payment methods
• No limit on withdrawals to external bank account

While there is no clarity which exchnge rate or markup is applied for “free users” who have not signed up with the premium membership as per above, it still means that premium customers, at least, are going to pay very little per trade. For example, based on what Sokin claims to offer, a customer paying £1m to USD will only pay those £10 membership fees while getting the actual interbank GBPUSD exchange rate (the best GBPUD exchange rate possible). That’s a 0.001% spread.

While this is an interesting prospect to consider and what could be the future of fx payments we are generally skeptical about the long term viability of such a pricing model. In a way, Sokin would have to be profitable one day to justify its business and considering that Wise profit margin is just below 6%, and it means that they will either change their pricing altogether or shut down at a point in time.

Current, Official, Foreign Exchange Rates

Rates are updated on an hourly basis from an external provider. We do not guarantee accuracy. These are not rates for foreign currency bank transfers but rather the official rate used in trading between central banks. To view the best foreign exchange rate for bank transfers click here.

The Best Exchange Rates in History

Below, we will provide a list of the best exchange rates in history to give some perspective.

• The best GBP to EUR exchange rate in history was 1.75 in May, 2000.
• The best EUR to GBP exchange rate in history was 0.97 in December, 2008.
• The best GBP to USD exchange rate in history was 2.64 in March, 1972.
• The best USD to GBP exchange rate in history was 0.95 in February, 1985.
• The best EUR to USD exchange rate in history was 1.59 in April, 2008.
• The best USD to EUR exchange rate in history was 1.21 in October, 2000.
• The best GBP to AUD exchange rate in history was 3.03 in September, 2001.
• The best AUD to GBP exchange rate in history was 0.78 in October, 1976.
• The best EUR to AUD exchange rate in history was 2.07 in December, 2008.
• The best AUD to EUR exchange rate in history was 0.85 in August, 2012.
• The best USD to AUD exchange rate in history was 2.07 in April, 2001.
• The best AUD to USD exchange rate in history was 1.48 in March, 1974.
• The best GBP to JPY exchange rate in history was 1014.1 in March, 1962.
• The best USD to JPY exchange rate in history was 359.8 in July, 1970.
• The best AUD to JPY exchange rate in history was 402.97 in July, 1970.

Best Exchange Rates in History Table

Summary – discovering the best exchange rates

1. The foreign exchange interbank rate is the official rate banks use when trading currencies with each other.
2. A bank’s international foreign exchange rates made available to clients (“buy rate” and “sell rate”) are not the current interbank rates. Alas, they contain a built-in spread which represent a large invisible fee.
3. Banks’ fx rates for bank to bank transfers can be 2.5% worse than the interbank fx rate.
4. The best exchange rates  for internaitonal money transfers are still usually not as good as the specialist broker’s best FX rate for bank money transfers. The dedicated companies/brokerages can provide you with a better-than-bank foreign exchange rate.
5. We believe WorldFirst has the best FX for international money transfers offer currently on the market for businesses only.
6. For non-businesse clients we recommend checking the best rated money transfer companies.
7. There are many considerations when choosing a provider that go beyond the best exchange rate offered.
8. The Pound to Euro and Pound to USD exchange rate are expected to rattle throughout 2021.