TransferWise vs Xoom

TransferWise provides a simple easy to use international money transfer service with digital wallet capabilities. Their digital wallet, or Borderless account also gives the individual local banking details in 6+ currencies including, EUR, SGD, NZD, USD, GBP and AUD. Their TransferWise Borderless debit card backs on to their Borderless digital wallet allowing you to spend directly out of your multi-currency account balances.

What TransferWise offers individuals

• International money transfers
• Borderless multi-currency receiving accounts
• Borderless Debit Card - FX optimised debit card
• Android and Apple apps
• Send money to email address
• Scheduled and recurring transfers - sufficiently funded Borderless account required for this to work. 

What TransferWise does not offer individuals

• Personal account management
• Full support for regular transfers. Currently regular transfers or ‘scheduled transfers’ need to have a Borderless multi-currency account balance. Find out which countries support TransferWise Borderless account.
• Cash pick up or international bill payments

Xoom lets personal customers transfer money to a significant number of countries, through different channels.

What Xoom does

• International money transfers
• Cash pick-ups
• International bill payments
• Home delivery of money

What Xoom doesn’t do

• Personal account managers
• Regular transfers
• Unique local multi-currency accounts
• Digital wallet
• FX optimised travel card
• Currency hedging tools

In addition to the services TransferWise offers the individual, there are some features only available for a business. Unfortunately, as TransferWise is online only, a business customer does not have support with currency fluctuations and trends. TransferWise does however offer easy to use transactional foreign currency receipts and payments.

Scheduled transfers is a recently added feature. This can reduce admin for those standard monthly, weekly payments to suppliers and staff. A sufficient balance in the Business Borderless account is required. TransferWise will remind the account owner to make sure there is sufficient funds in the multi-current account. What is not supported is standing orders from a business bank account through TransferWise. This may mean that businesses need to alter their business structure to ensure continuous sufficent Borderless account funding.

What TransferWise offers businesses

• Batch payments
• Xero and Quickbook integration
• FX optimised business debit card
• Multi-user account access
• Regular and scheduled transfers

What TransferWise for business doesn’t offer

• Business account management
• Risk management tools

Xoom does not provide services for businesses.

TransferWise offers the real time exchange rate at the time of your transfer. Therefore fees are visible in addition to the transfer amount. The fee structure is complex as it differs depending on the currencies you are sending from and to. Fees also apply to the type of Borderless account transaction. Fees can also apply on the use of the TransferWise Borderless debit card. Fees are briefly summarised below. Read the detailed TransferWise review for more details on TransferWise fees.

Xoom fees

Exchange rate margin fee - This is up to 2% for commonly traded currencies, and can be more than 5% for exotic currencies. 

Additional fees - The transfer fee varies based on the currencies being traded, the transfer amount, the payment method and the transfer method.

• Debit and credit card payments tend to attract added fees.
• Transfers to cash pick-up centers are typically more expensive than bank account transfers.
• The Bill Pay service comes with a flat transfer fee of $/£/€ 2.99. This is not including the exchange rate margin.

The TransferWise app design and user experience of their technology is great with simple, intuitive processes.

Registration - Fast and easy account creation

ID verification - Instant in some countries

Transfer speed - It can be instantaneous in some countries. Fast payments to TransferWise comes at an additional cost.

Minimum transfer amount - $1

Mobile app - Simple and easy to use. Probably the best designed app of the international money transfer companies.

Payment options - TransferWise has the broadest range of payment options. Local bank transfer, debit / credit card and country specific solutions such as POLi.

Sign up - Registration is simple, and becomes even easier for existing PayPal customers.

ID verification - Level 1 membership comes without the need for ID verification.

Payment options -  Bank transfers, debit cards, credit cards and PayPal.

Mobile apps - Available for Android and iOS.

Minimum transfer amount - Low minimum transfer amount.

Transfer limit - Xoom has 24-hour, 30-day, and 180-day transfer limits.

TransferWise’s supported countries vary with different services having different supported customer countries and destination countries. These are detailed in the TransferWise Countries and Currencies article and is summarized below.

Send from - 23 countries plus the Europe SEPA countries

Send to - Over 60 currencies

Borderless account and debit card - Over 6 countries can sign up to their Borderless services.

Supported payment currencies - Xoom lets customers send money from more than 70 countries.It accepts payments in USD, CAD, EUR and GBP.

Supported destination currencies - Xoom lets you send money to around 130 countries, in around 80 currencies. 

Supported countries for bill payments - Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicargua and Vietnam.

Multilingual customer support - Customers get multilingual customer support. Languages include English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Filipino, Chinese and Arabic.

Foreign language website access - Xoom's website is available in a number of languages such as  French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Polish, Arabic, Filipino, Chinese and  Vietnamese.

TransferWise is fully regulated by the FCA and their customer funds are segregated from their business banking activities.

TransferWise is rated on TrustPilot as Excellent. Unfortunately there have been some poor reviews on TrustPilot indicating sudden account closures with funds being returned with no explanation.

TransferWise continues to raise capital through private funding. This could be a concern for the future when the shareholders are looking for aggressive growth and / or a return on their investment.

Where Xoom does well

Regulated - Xoom is regulated by the US federal government and various state regulatory bodies. It is licensed to provide its services in all its countries in its transfer network.

Trustpilot - Xoom gets an Excellent rating on Trustpilot. However, a number of complaints highlight lengthy turnaround times and failed transfers. 
 

Xoom challenges

Fees transparency - Xoom applies a margin on existing exchange rates. This can be over 5% for some currencies. 

Customer support - The company does not seem to respond to any of its customers' reviews on Trustpilot and the Apple App store. Many customers also complain about receiving poor customer service over the phone.