I am going to move to Germany in May, and I have a serious question.
I plan on selling my car here to buy a new one in Germany. I lived in Spain, and I noticed that I got the exact exchange rate that the spot markets use when withdrawing from an ATM. That really suprised me! There was no fee at all. I would withdraw 100 Euro, and it would cost me 86 dollars. Truely amazing. But, do I want to pay with a debit card for a new car in Germany? Should I do as someone in the UK question suggested and create an account in Germany and get a wire transfer? I want the solution that allows me to get the most out of my money. I don’t think traveler’s checks are a good idea. the rate is about 7% higher than the spot rate. What is the best way to transfer money and get the spot rate? This is really confusing. I may need cash, because I may buy the car from an individual.
In my experience there are two ways that I normally do it. One is to bring a suitcase full of money, and the other is to use an ATM (as you did). (Admittedly I have only ever transported much smaller amounts, but at one point I receivedmy salary in Switzerland, and had an account in France. To have the salary transfgered to the French bank cost a fortune, and in the end I withdrew it in cash, and cycled over to France, where I deposited the amount, at a pretty decent rate.
Using a debit card in a German ATM might also work, but beware that there might be limits to how much you’re allowed to transfer within any given time.
In my expreience banks charge an absolute fortune for international transfers, and I think you’d be better off not using them.
The bank fees were about 40 dollars for wire transfers between Germany and the USA, IIRC. Be careful about transporting cash out of the US, I think that there are laws which either forbid or restrict carrying out large sums of cash, as part of the drug interdiction thing.
I’d open an account at any major German branch. You’re going to need one anyway to pay your bills, like rent and such, if you live in Germany anyway. Then wire transfer as much as you like/need from your US bank. I always got a decent rate. You can stipulate whether you want the US bank to transfer in dollars or euros. My experience was that European banks (I had accounts with UBS in Switzerland and Commerzbank in Germany) gave better exchange rates than the US banks (PNC Private Bank); YMMV.
You might also use a brokerage to change money which should get you the exact spot rate but you’ll be subject to whatever fees they charge. Maybe via a discount brokerage or E-trade might work.
You think wrong and I wish people would stop posting stuff they aren’t even sure about in GQ. It is one thing to post something you believe is correct but turns out not to be correct but it is another thing to just post stuff which is wrong and you know it is probably wrong.
AFAIK, there are regulations which require anyone moving more than $10,000 in or out of the USA (no matter how it is done) to notify the authorities. If you do it through your bank then the bank will do it but if you carry on you cash, checks or any other kind of instrument then you are required to notify the authorities which is easily done with a form you get at the airport but there is NO restriction or limitation. And, I will add, that US banks are required to notify the authorities of all transfers over the limit, not only abroad but also domestic.
You can wire the money and pay the fee if you will not be going there personally but you can avoid paying the fee if you get travelers checks which you can get from your bank for free.
And I will repeat I have had more problems with wire transfers than with travelers checks.
This is just turning into a repeat of the earlier thread.
This has definitely not been my experience. Exchange offices always quote a worse rate for travelles’ cheques than for cash everywhere I’ve ever been in Europe.
Okay thanks for the input everyone. Well, I’m not sure if everyone here knows what the spot rate is, but now it currently hovers around 1.07 dollars to the Euro. Around a year ago it was .86 USD to EUR. Now, travelers checks are around 1.14 (6-7% markup is a lot when dealing with a car.) I think a credit card has a few percent markup also.
BUT, when I was in Spain, I would withdraw with my American ATM card and get spot-market rates with no fees! Well, I think that is what happened. For instance. I would record how much I was taking out. Then a few days later I would look at my bank statement and check out how much money was deducted. I did a little division, and realized that the rate I got was darn near the spot rate.
I was thinking that maybe I could just withdraw money from the ATM every day until I had all of it. I have heard that you can get 1000 a day if you want. I could take a small amount out, and then check to see the rate, and if it is good, just take out a thousand every day until I was satisfied. Of course I would deposit the cash into a German bank account.
I have sent normal Bank of America checks (in dollars) to friends in Germany and they simply deposited it into their accounts. All they said was that it took about 10 days to clear.
If that is the case, take some checks from your home bank, and after you set up a new bank account in Germany, write yourself a check and deposit it. You might even want to speak with your local bank manager and see what they have to say about it.
Again, I don’t know what, if any, fees they had to pay (standard fee or percentage of check value) or if there is a limit for deposit (my biggest check I sent was for $300).
Many years ago, a Chase Manhattan opened in my neighborhood in Berlin and I wanted to open a US Dollar account (I was doing freelance writing and getting paid in dollars). They said, “No problem. You need to have a minimum of US$10,000 to open the account.” As that was about $9,900 more than I had planned to deposit, I never opened the account.
The ATM idea sound good though.
::I am not a banker. I know nothing about international banking. The above is simply my first-hand experience::