Money transfers between US, EU and Asia

   Money transfers have always been a comfortable service for international money operations, business abroad or immigration/emigration. But, as some of you may know when dealing with banks that do international money transfers you must have both sender and receiver bank account information for you to get the funds from one account to another, no matter if you use Transfermate or do a private bank transfer. So basically you get to the point of completing some documents and applications for the particular transaction and you may run onto details that actually are different for banks in the United States, in Europe (EU - European Union) and in Asia. The differences actually come from the specific bank systems worldwide and namely the European the American and the Australian.
   Here are the main specific details for those three bank account identification systems, or in other words the numbers you'll need to fill in money transfer applications to/from Australian, American and/or European banks.
   Regarding the US system of wire transfers the main thing you should know is that they do not use the same numbers for identification like in Europe and AU. The main bank account id number is called there Routing Transit Number (RTN), and is being used in the States for almost 70 years (which acutally does not speak well for the system by anyway..). So that is the most important number for you to fill in in order to identify which bank account you are using (no matter for sending or receiving money in/to it). This number (the RTN) is a nine-digit code representing the information as it follows:

    XXXXYYYYC
    XXXX - Federal Reserve Routing symbol
    YYYY - Financial institution identifier (in brief Bank ID)
    C - Check Digit
    So as you can see this number has a lot of disadvantages compared to the ISBN code, and may     be because of its age it actually does not include any personal account identifier or whatsoever.

   The IBAN money transfer bank code. This code shortened after International Bank Account Number and it is mainly used in Europe and some other countries identifying the country, the swift code the bank account number and the district the bank is at.
The code scheme is like this:

    kk BBBB SSSS CCCC CCCC CCCC

  With:
     - the country abreviation (e.g. EN for England, AU for Austria)
    kk - a number prefix for the discrict area
    BBBB - Particular bank transfer code
    SSSS - Sort code
    CCCC CCCC CCCC - Account number


   BSB (Bank State branch) code is the code that you'll need when filling a money transfer form for Australian bank account information. The system in AU uses only this code when making international transactions to or from the Oz.

   The format of the code is as follows:
First two digits specify the parent financial institution.
Third digit specifies the state where the branch is located
Fourth, fifth and sixth digits specify the branch

    For example, the BSB "033088" actually breaks down to the following:
   03 = Westpac Banking Corporation
   3 = Victoria
   088 = 383 Chapel Street, Prahran

Offshore finance countries in and near Europe

    Recently we had discussion with some investors willing to develop financial money services in the EU and got to the point talking about where the head finance accounts should be set up. Some of the investors had the thought that any small country no matter in EU or outside it which is currently developing its economy and infrastructure is an offshore zone for money to be stored in without tax issues, along with high confidentiality. Well do not get confused like them, in Europe (European Union) there are no countries that have this status allowing them to hide bank account information and to protect money transfers from taxes. The only countries that have this feature are not in Europe, but are bordering the EU. Those are Switzerland, Monaco, Malta, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Cyprus. Of course there are some others near Europe that just provide some eases for commersial and corporate financial needs, but those are just the best usually used for high-definiton money export.
    We will only focus on the most appropriate and developed offshore banking zones in which money are more than secure and money transfers go without any problems along with the symbolically low taxes rates.
    Money and finances in Gyprus (offshore banking). Cyprus is know to be a separated to two parts contry, with a main characteristic of each sides - Greek influence for one of the sides, and a Turkish for the other. As you may already suppose, the Greek part is considered and know to be the better developed in economical and infrastructure terms. That is the part where actually Banks offer conditions and requirements which suit the money storage of large companies that want to avoid high tax rates. Money transfers to and from banks in this Cyprus part are noticed to have diminutive fees and because of the high international influance, they have great relationships with all the money transfer insitutions all over the world.
   Swiss banking and money transfers. Switzerland does not need an introduction, as it is widely famous with its Banks and offshore finances stored in Swiss bank accounts. Fore some of you Switzerland may seem an overestimated zone, but facts are facts. They really offer the highest confidentiallity for your money and private bank account information, and they avoid being in the European Union which gives them the opportunity not to be ruled by laws that otherwise oblige high tax rates. That is why the taxes that comply in Switzerland does not oblige your finances and you are not supposed to pay the high amount of money that you would otherwise pay in e.g UK, US, Australia, etc. Swiss government holds the position that privacy is fundamental for any financial or money transfer service, and supports the firm policy of any of the Banks situated there.
    Well for now that information would be enough for you if you decide to export your money to an offshore banking zone like Switzerland or Cyprus. If you have any additional questions or want to know specific details mail us and we will do our best to get the info for you.

USD versus EUR and Wire versus Cash

   Recently a huge turmoil has been in progress as most of you noticed on the foreign exchange markets, stock markets and in global economical view. So for the others that do not know the exact reason of that money-chaos situation, it is the US Dollar and US economy that changed and slowed the world financial growth. The thing is that for an year or so, USD is constantly falling in almost every FX pair (USD/EUR, USD/JPY, USD/AUD, etc) and that is for sure not normaly but is kind of aftermath of the bloodbaths America used to make around the world and the position of the Oil with respect to the U.S positions overseas. Anyway most of you could say, OK, the dollar is going down but it won't wound me because I am trading in EUR and I am in Europe, so me and my finances will remain untouched and unharmed. Well, almost true - in any case whatever financial moves you make with money overseas, the smartest thing to do is to use EUR or at least JPY because of their stable position right now and even in a long-term prediction forecast. But, there is almost no chance for your finances to remain unharmed in a long-term view because of the 100% sure opinion of economical experts that this USD crisis will surely slow the global growth and in any case "the party is over". But, again, please use EUR, GBP, JPY or whatever you like and do not get involved in deals which USD is a main currency.

   Another thing that cannot be easily noticed if you are not dealing with corporate finance or large money operations overseas is the change of some money transfer companies' Terms and Conditions because of never seen before amount of Fraud worldwide. And this information by the way was not public, as I happened to reach it through several head central subagent executives dealing with opening new branches of Western Union. According to them, as internal reports show, the amount of fraudalent money transfers to the Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa exceeds the percentage of legal ones. That is the reason for Money transfer companies to tighten up the requirements and rules for international money transfers to insure that illegal money-laundering activities are not being done via their services, and of course for the security of legal money transactions overseas. A new tracking system is know to be developed in order for the money sender and/or receiver to be able to track the money from their source to their destination. There are of course other new things around the money transactions but we will all get informed as soon as they will make them public.

Work or Study overseas money transfer explanation

     We have always popularized the different specific services for both private or corporate money transactions we offer in Transfermate, but we have never explained in details what are they all about and in which cases you should use a particular specific service among our 7: for the private customers - Work/Study overseas, Propery overseas, Regular transfers, Salary/Pension transfer; and for the corporate clients - General payments, Flexi transfer contracts and Forward flexi contracts.
     Speaking about a specific service we should start with the Work and Study overseas money transfer opition you can use. Here's the thing, many people, or in other words many of you plan to emigrate and move to another country with the intention to work for a higher salary and get more money for the job you've been doing in your home country. First, since there is no way for you to travel with more than e.g EUR2000/USD3000 - EUR3000/USD4000, you need a way to get your initial kick-off money abroad for your easy start in the foreign land. Now here's the choice for you! First you surely will need a bank account in the country you are going to not only for transferring funds but for getting your salary in it, paying your health and social insurance and other taxes. So the thing you can do is to open a bank account for example by using the services of Traveltowork - offshore bank accounts. Now, let's say you've already did that job and you want to get your money into the bank account abroad. Then comes the specific service offered by Transfermate called Work/Study overseas which you can use sending your money to the offshore account in advance, so that you won't have problems in your start there. The services is prepared especially for emigrants with preferential rates and price when going international. Of course, once you already have a job anywhere in the world and want to send money home, the same service is the most appropriate for this need. So that is an example of working abroad and transferring money with a particular private money transfer provided by TM.
     Now, other example of the use of Work/Study overseas money transfer could be if you are a prospective student looking forward to get your education abroad no matter if it would be in an University, College, High-school or whatever education institution you choose, and you need to get money from your home land potentially from your parents to support you financially during your study period. That is why you will need a service to receive money overseas from your ancestors in order to live abroad, especially if you do not have the time or chance to work along with the lectures. In that case, and because of those needs we created the Work/Study overseas money transactions, and again like in the case above you just have to click and fill in the application in order to get your money from the parents bank account to the student one. Again, you can use the offshore banking services of Traveltowork to get your bank accounts set up.
    We hove we were helpful with this post for people working or studying or looking forward to do that abroad.