Sometimes (a lot of the time) money gets extremely tight when you are at uni. More often than not, your loan just about covers your rent let alone having to buy food, books and anything else on top of that. When times get hard you know you can always rely on the bank of Mum and Dad to bail you out.
That’s all very well when you both have UK bank accounts but things start to become a little tricky if your parents live abroad or if you are an international student. When you need to transfer money to another country it gets expensive, banks start charging hidden fees and then you have to bear in mind what the exchange rate is at the time.
Some banks in the UK charge up to £25 when you want to transfer money abroad, there are very few customers who are aware of these costs as they are not clear on the advertising. If you are an international student paying your tuition fees, banks will charge you an extra 5%. Imagine your fees are at the top end and are £9000, the banks are taking £450 that could easily be spent on something more useful.
There are companies out there that are not the bad guys, one of those companies is TransferWise. When transferring money between countries the pricing is clear with no hidden fees and the exchange rate is the real one. If you want to give it a try you can, a first time transfer is free up to an amount of £3000.
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