📝 Important Information June 2023:

Xe Money Transfer is provided by HiFX Europe Limited. This review provides background to HiFX so you can get an understanding of the business that has recently rebranded to XE Money Transfer. For the full up-to-date review of XE Money Transfer visit our XE review here.

Company Information and Credibility

Company Information:

As Euronet has acquired both HiFX and XE.com they have not surprisingly decided to rebrand their money transfer offering in line with the globally recognised xe.com. HiFX was a well known UK brokerage firm assisting both individuals and businesses with their foreign exchange requirements. XE had previously offered users an online system which allowed individuals to send money abroad for remittance purposes but with little customer support available. The newly branded XE.com means the group can leverage the XE brand name but provide better support capabilities and expertise from the team that was built by HiFX.

More background to HiFX

HiFX was one of the original UK currency brokers founded in the UK in 1998. It was meant to be a banking alternative for white-collar individuals to cut down on the cost of sending money overseas. The company grew over the next decade-and-a-half, establishing offices in the US, New Zealand, and Australia. In 2014, HiFX was purchased by American Euronet, which is a parent company to remittance transfer service Ria.

Euronet agreed to keep HiFX’s staff and initially its branding, using the company to expand its customer base from the Hispanic immigrant population served by Ria. In the year since the buyout, HiFX’s reputation for affordable and excellent service has only been amplified, making the company one of the best currency transfer companies available on a broad international scale.

Regulated By: 

Financial Conduct Authority (UK), FMA (New Zealand), FOS (Australia)

Awards: 

Australia Business Awards, 2011

Tech Innovation Awards NZ, 2011

Conclusion: 

A company that transferred over £134,549,388,534 by itself (over 200bn combined with sister companies), 8 international offices, and has over 8000 client reviews places the group on the top of the scale when it comes to credibility.

Client Feedback

Research:

HiFX has some of the most glowing feedback found for any currency transfer company, in both quality and quantity. TrustPilot: 9.5/10.0 (8000+ reviews). ReviewCentre: 4.5/5.0 (100+ reviews).

These are the two popular platforms for client reviews in the money transfer vertical, and we strongly rely on their feedback on our rating.

Conclusion:

Most people are very happy with HiFX’s services and all of their offerings. These people, which amount to 85%+ of all client reviews, feel they have got a great deal in terms of pricing, and receiving the service as expected.

On the other hand, you can find some HiFX complaints around, some of them on the official HiFX client review pages, and some relating to the Post Office Money Transfer services that HiFX provided until mid-2015. These people are very upset about every aspect of service, and claim they have been charged with unanticipated fees.

To summarize, it seems like HiFX’s service may be inconsistent at times but it is generally good.

Exchange Rate & Fees

Research:

Fees: Fees are incurred globally – £9 per transfer for all transfers below £3,000, and $15 below $5,000 in the USA. Not only this makes the exchange rates much worse for those who are looking to transfer a thousand or two (9 pounds translate to almost 1% of the funds transferred), it makes testing HiFX more difficult. If you want to learn the process and try one test transfer of £100 or £200, it will cost you dozens of Pounds to initiate it.

November 2017 update: HiFX seems to have dropped their fees. This is what we can see on their website but we don’t know whether this is a global policy or only for the UK. We will further investigate the matter.

Exchange Rates: It’s really difficult to say how HiFX’ rates compare with other companies. As with other companies we tested, they should be able to save you 50% or more of the transfer costs in comparison with banks. The question is which rates will they be able to offer a price that beats other companies’ quotes remain unanswered but our assumption, because of the ample size of the company, is that they would be able to provide a very tight margin quote on larger amounts.

Here is the most recent comparison they published:

Limits: Very comfortable limitations online of €50 to €300,000 which makes this service available to almost everyone.

HiFX Review – Fees – Conclusion:

HiFX is up there with the big players like CurrenciesDirect, WorldFirst or TorFX in terms of fees and exchange rates.

Global Reach & Service

Research:

• Dedicated Dealer: Yes.
• Offices: UK, Spain, New Zealand, Australia.
• Ways to approach: Email, Telephone.
• Translations: None but localized version for USA, New Zealand and Australia.
• Accepts clients: Worldwide
• Currencies Handled: 60.
• Client reviews: Usually like the service.

Conclusion:

Users can usually get friendly, helpful service available by phone or email, with support based in New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Personalized advisors are available for large or complex transfers. Customer reviews are very positive on this front, describing service as competent, courteous, and prompt.

There are local offices for clients in various regions of the world, and they deal with more currencies than the vast majority of companies.

Additional Functionalities

Hedging:

HiFX offers only spot contracts through their web platform. All normal hedging features, including spot and forward contracts as well as stop and loss orders, are available by phone.

For Online Sellers:

Many of HiFX’s customers are businesses, but the company makes no special provisions for web merchants.

App:

HiFX users will now need to log into the XE money transfer app. Interestingly the group haven’t yet looked to combine the highly rated XE app with the XE money transfer app yet. We suspect this is so they can resolve and fix the issues specific to the XE money transfer app first which generally has poorer feedback – 2.8* on iTunes and 3.4* at the play store.

Conclusion:

Standard offering on hedging, nothing special for merchants (or at least not advertised) and a sub-par app at the moment.

HiFX vs World First

How does World First match up with its possibly biggest competitor, HiFX? Why did we gave World First 95.4% on our World First review, against HiFX’s mere 80.0%?

When you look at World First vs HiFX, there are several advantages that World First has in comparison, and this is why we believe it may be a better choice.

• World First has a “Best Rate Guarantee” for UK clients, which means the rates will always be cheaper than competitors (if you shop around).
• World First doesn’t levy any fixed transfer fees (with the exception of $10 for American clients for small transfers), HiFX charges £9 per transfer for all clients under £3,000.
• World First has been winning more impressive industry awards, and more impressive directors including the former deputy of Bank of England.
• World First has a more diverse offering to business clients with its World Accounts functionality.
• World First have the smoothest sign up process in the business.

Thus, when we compare HiFX’s services to World First’s service, albeit they are very similar, we believe World First is the better options for most clients.

Please note WorldFirst accepts only business customers.