- Most E-commerce happens in US dollars,
but many of us don't live in the United States
and we have to convert those US dollars
into our local currency.
As well, in this multi-national world,
we are often moving our money around the globe
to different people,
and the universal payment system, that we trust
and that is efficient and affordable,
is essential for online commerce.
Wait a minute Dotto, PayPal,
PayPal does all the things that you're talking about.
Yes, PayPal does, but PayPal charges a pretty penny
for doing things like converting our funds
from US funds into our local funds.
Or for even transferring funds from one person to the other.
There's always a charge that you pay with PayPal.
I think that that charge is sometimes,
no not sometimes, is often excessive.
There has to be a better way.
Wouldn't it be outstanding if we,
wherever we lived in the world,
could open a US based bank account.
A US dollar bank account in the United States of America,
that was seem as a terrestrial bank,
that was seen as a local bank.
So people like PayPal,
if we collect our money in to PayPal or into Stripe,
we can transfer US funds into this bank account
and then we can convert currencies at bank rate
and we can distribute the money as a direct transfer,
without paying charges to have that money transferred.
Wouldn't that be great?
Yes, I think we could all say that would be great,
and I have great news.
We have just such a service.
It's called TransferWise and I'm gonna show it to you today,
on Dotto Tech.
(upbeat music)
Steve Dotto here, how the heck are you doing this fine day.
I got really excited when I discovered TransferWise,
a US virtual bank account that I could sign up for
that gave me most of the permissions
and most of the benefits
of having a terrestrial bank account or real US bank account
that I could then collect money into
and then distribute it for my needs around the world.
Now, I have one disclaimer for you,
this is not a paid placement, not a paid video.
However, I am a TransferWise affiliate.
We've signed up for their affiliate program
and if you decide you like the services and you use our link
in order to sign up for TransferWise,
I am compensated for that.
I think a lot of you will be interested
in signing up for TransferWise,
because it does so many things, so well for us.
And saves us money every time we use it.
Let me take you on a quick demo on what TransferWise is,
and how we can use it.
When you visit the TransferWise website,
they will have your local currency as the default currency.
You're looking at it here because I'm in Canada,
with Canadian currency being the example.
But definitely read through
all of the features at TransferWise,
because I'm just gonna show you the tip of the iceberg
and how we're using TransferWise to benefit us.
But you'll, I'm sure, find other ways to use it.
If we scroll right down to the bottom,
this is what resonated with me, this is what resonated.
"We're building money without borders."
"The worlds banking systems weren't designed
"for people without borders."
And they aren't, you think about all of the roadblocks
that happen as we move currency around the world.
But that's why they built TransferWise,
it's designed from the ground up to enable
those of us who are global communicators
and we have global businesses,
even if we're very small.
Global business used to work for large businesses,
but not for the little guys like me and you.
Now with TransferWise, it works with us.
So let's start with the most basic.
How much money do you save,
just transferring money into your local currency?
And this is gonna resonate for everybody
who doesn't live in the United States.
For Canadians, for Germans, for those in the UK,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan.
Anywhere you live where you're transferring and converting
US funds into another currency,
take a look at this and do the math yourself.
I'm gonna go into my PayPal account,
and I'm gonna say if I transfer $1,000 US,
into my Canadian bank account,
PayPal will convert that and deliver to me $1,384,
that's what the current conversion rate is as of today.
If I go to TransferWise,
and convert the same $1,000 into Canadian,
it is $1,428 that they're gonna transfer to me.
That's nearly $45 each and every transfer
that I do of $1,000.
If I transfer $10,000, nearly $500 is the difference.
This isn't a small difference, if your main currency,
if your main business is collection money in US funds
and then you have to bring it into your own countries funds,
into your own local currency,
this will make a massive difference to you
at the end of the year, using a tool like TransferWise.
How do you get the money into TransferWise?
Let's take you inside of the TransferWise account
and show you.
First of all, I should tell you,
you can, very easily still collect your money with PayPal.
If PayPal or Stripe are your payment system on your website
that you're collecting money into,
you can transfer money at any point.
You can set up, or you will set up
TransferWise as one of your bank accounts.
Here it is, right here.
This is it in my PayPal accounts,
that I can transfer money into.
It's seen by PayPal as a US based bank account.
Community Federal Savings Bank.
So when I do a transfer from PayPal,
PayPal will do that transfer at no cost
because it's a bank to bank transfer.
So I can transfer all of the money that I collect in PayPal,
all of the money I collect in stripe
or any other payment system in the US funds
and transfer it into TransferWise.
Which is awesome.
Once I've got it in TransferWise,
then I can convert the currency or I can send the money,
I can distribute the money around the world
at a far lower fee
than what PayPal charges us for transfers.
So let's just jump into TransferWise quickly,
and take a look at that.
Now first of all,
I have to say that when you set up the TransferWise account,
put aside a half hour or so
to go through the entire configuration process.
You have to be approved et cetera,
you have to prove who you are,
for obviously banking regulations.
But once you set up your account,
TransferWise has wonderful online support
and they make the confusing parts
of financial transactions understandable.
Such as, when you look at any of your accounts,
knowing exactly what are the different numbers you've got.
You've got your wirer transfer number,
or your routing, your ACH or your ABA.
If you've ever tried to transfer money directly
from one bank account to another bank account
and set up that integration,
you recognize that depending on the jurisdiction you're in.
The banks use different nomenclature,
they use a different language as far as routing numbers
or wire transfer numbers or ACH numbers,
as well as the account number itself
and the institution number.
There's all these different numbers
that appear as different codes,
which to the lay person, are incredibly confusing.
TransferWise outlines what they all are,
this is their stock and trade.
They are set up to teach us how to do this
and to facilitate these transfers.
So as far as I'm concerned,
the confidence that they gave me,
setting up for multiple direct deposits,
because I set up to deposit directly
into our own bank account, my own personal bank account.
But for my staff,
this is how I also distribute funds to them
and they save money each and every month,
because when they invoice me for their work and I pay them,
they aren't paying a PayPal surcharge
on having that money transferred to them.
Instead, it's a direct deposit into their bank
that happens in many cases, almost instantaneously.
Now I'm not gonna show you and say there's a universal way
that each and every transaction happens,
because depending on the banks
and depending on the service that you're asking for,
it can take anywhere from instant to transfer
to maybe up to two days to transfer
and it can cost from several cents and up
for the transaction to take place.
But in every single case,
it's far less than other systems and far easier
than other systems.
Apologies, there'll probably be a lot of blurring,
as we blur out our private information here.
But let me just show you quickly,
how I go about sending money to myself
or to one of my team members.
You always start with the account that you have,
I've got two different currency accounts set up,
a US account and a Canadian account.
If I was gonna transfer the money to my Canadian bank,
I could either transfer directly to a US funds account
in a Canadian bank or I can convert it using TransferWise's
conversion fees, which I find to be very fair.
You start with the account
that you're gonna be transferring money from.
Open that up,
and then you choose what you want to do with that.
It always gives you the basic information
as you enter any one,
of exactly what all of those numbers
that I was talking about a few moments ago are.
So you always have access to what your routing number is,
et cetera, so you can understand those things.
If I want to just send US dollars to myself
or somebody else, I would say, send US dollars,
it will then ask me how much I wanna transfer.
Let's just say we're gonna transfer $1,000.
And then you continue
and they give you how much the recipients going to get,
at this point here.
This is a number that will fluctuate
as you finish of the transaction,
depending where it's going and who's getting it.
So it's one of the kinds of vagueretees
of using TransferWise, but that numbers not always
exactly right at this point here.
But it will be very close once your done.
You continue, it tells you when it's gonna arrive by
and then you choose which of your clients
or which of your accounts you want to send that money to.
So I have each one of my co-workers set up here,
so that I can transfer funds to them.
And for the people who send me money directly,
for some of my business partners,
they have me set up as a recipient from them.
You simply choose the account that it's gonna be going to
and then you can add a note for what the transfer is.
And then it reviews the details,
you accept the terms and you confirm and send it.
And it will give you all the details of how much
you're being charged for that transfer
and exactly what dollars are gonna be received at each end.
That is essentially how TransferWise works for moving money.
So the two key aspects of TransferWise, three keys.
First, it gives you a US account.
It gives you a US based bank account.
It allows you to convert your US funds into local funds
at a far more favorable rate
and it allows you to transfer that money
to the bank accounts that it needs to go to,
again at a substantial savings.
There are some other features that TransferWise has,
which aren't universally available yet,
but for example all of our European friends
can get a TransferWise debit card today,
which will allow you to transfer funds directly
onto that debit card, that they can then use
right through Europe in the banking systems there,
as a straight up debit card.
That feature we hope, is coming to Canada very soon.
They've told us it is, I'm waiting to see it.
But those sorts of features and those sorts of functions
are the direction that TransferWise is taking us.
They truly wanna build a world that has no borders
for the transfer of money around the planet.
For small business people like you and I,
this is a boon for us, it saves us money,
it gives us confidence that we can pay
and that we can be paid in a reasonable amount of time
at a reasonable cost.
I imagine that you, now that you've seen TransferWise,
like me when I was first exposed to TransferWise,
are very excited about the potential
and are going to take a look as soon as this videos over.
I encourage you to click on the links below
and have a look at TransferWise.
Looking forward to hearing your comments as well.
Has this saved you money?
How much money does it save you?
I think it saves us on a monthly basis,
here at Dotto Tech,
in the neighborhood of three to $400 each and every month.
I'd love to hear how much money it saves you.
Tell me in the comments below.
Now, if you've enjoyed this video today,
if you found valuable I would appreciate a thumbs up
and a like as well.
Make sure that you subscribe to this channel
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so you hear when we upload new videos here at Dotto Tech.
Till next time, I'm Steve Dotto.
Have fun storming a castle.