How to use ‘Wise’ (formerly TransferWise) when traveling abroad

I signed up to Wise when it was called ‘TransferWise’ years ago. I never used it to purchase anything online, or even when I traveled. All of this changed when they finally released a Visa Debit card for Canadians in August of 2023, and then my entire world opened up!

(This is not sponsored. I just happen to really like this card.)

What is a ‘Wise’ card?

Simply put, it is a multi-currency Visa Debit card. It is backed by Visa and its network, with the financial backing of Barclays in London, UK, but it acts like a debit card, not a credit card.

If you do not have money already in the account, you cannot spend it.

You can hold multiple currencies, and convert between one to another as needed, and the currency exchange is EXCELLENT. I use it to send money abroad, and it is far cheaper than Western Union, or even Xoom (Paypal’s answer to Wise).

FEES ARE UPFRONT

The fees are very clear on their transactions which I appreciate greatly.

In the breakdown, they tell you what you have, what you are sending, and what they are taking as a fee. Of course, the receiving bank may also take another fee upon receipt, so don’t assume that is all that is being charged.

Don’t take my word for it, check with your bank, your credit card, Xoom, and anywhere else to see if they really are the cheapest. I can tell you that I did the check, and they are.

ACTS LIKE A CREDIT CARD

If you run into trouble – it is lost, stolen, whatever, simply freeze it, report it to them, report it to the police, and they will be like any other credit card, and strike the fraudulent charges off your card, and reimburse you the money stolen. That alone, is such a relief especially when travelling.

USE THEM TO SHOP ONLINE AT HOME

As a Canadian, shopping online is difficult when you see prices in $USD and want to cry at the currency exchange rate.

Never fear!

Simply load your Wise account with $CAD, convert it to $USD and shop away with the virtual card number. You enter it just like a credit card, and you can see the amount debit instantly, and you saved a fkton of money in currency conversion to boot, instead of using your credit card to do it for you.

It is also great to send money in other currencies, which I often do as well.

USE THEM TO SHOP ABROAD

You can also get the physical card (or load the virtual one onto your phone), and shop abroad.

Tap as if you would tap any other credit card in that country, and pay instantly without having to count out and carry around wads of cash. Be forewarned that some machines only take local cards, not foreign ones, so it may not work in all cases.

This is one of the greatest conveniences ever, especially if you are hopping through multiple destinations with multiple currencies.

You can also just leave the converted money in your account, and spend it at a later date to not waste the conversion cost you paid.

Of course, I would not leave a ton of money there, as it would make me want to invest it and think of the lost opportunity cost, but I can see it as me transferring in a set budgeted amount for spending, converting it, and once the money is gone, it is G-O-N-E, and I stop spending.

What is also really awesome is let’s say you had $100 CAD, $100 USD and $100 AUD.. if you spent over $100 AUD, it would simply take money from either your CAD or USD balance and convert it on the spot to cover the difference. I love that!!!

You could also just convert all of it back into $CAD to then withdraw to your bank account. Or leave it as $CAD, and spend as you wish in $USD, letting it convert on the fly each time, then withdrawing the remaining $CAD when your trip is over (as an example).

PHYSICAL CARD VERSUS VIRTUAL

The physical debit card is the one that you see above in neon green. This has its own set of numbers. You can also sign up for the virtual card, which has ANOTHER set of numbers.

Why would you EVER do this?

For online shopping, that is why.

With your physical card, if it gets stolen, you can still use the virtual card by setting it up on your phone (Apple Pay or Google Pay), and using it to tap at merchants. You will have to wait for a replacement card of course, which, if you are abroad for the time, may take up to 2 months to reach you wherever you are.

If your virtual card gets stolen (the numbers I mean), you can close it down, open up another one, and still use your physical card without worrying about having to freeze it or cancel it.

Virtual cards are the way to go if you are shopping online, and I wish banks that had credit cards, offered this brilliant option.

RELOADING THE ACCOUNT CAN BE FREE*

Before this card, I was using my Rogers credit card and getting 1.5% back, but getting slammed heavily on the currency conversion fees (of which they make serious bank off on).

With Wise, you can simply set up your Canadian bank as one of its transfers and make it a bank-to-bank transfer connection. I treat it like a bank account, but I keep very little in it, only what I need if I want to do cross-currency transfers.

Unfortunately, the best bank to reload Wise is EQ bank, and frankly, it is the only reason why I even keep that stupid bank account (do not sign up for them or use them for any bill payments, or even savings. They are horrid.)

EQ Bank treats Wise as if it is a real bank, and you are able to transfer money for $0 (no fees) into the account. All other banks, will cost about $1.50 (?) to do an instant transfer via Interac, to a maximum of $3000 each time. So if you need to convert more than $3000, you are hooped, and have to pay the Interac fee each time, as well as wait as per their guidelines – $3000 maximum transferred per day, $10,000 maximum a week, etc…

There are of course, other banks you can use to do bank-to-bank transfer to Wise, and they are mostly credit unions.

Otherwise, any other bank like TD, Tangerine, WealthSimple – they all can do a transfer to the account easily via Bill Payment (you ‘pay’ the Wise card like a credit card in this case).

HOW TO MOVE MONEY TO WISE

Here are some ways I have done it:

Using EQ BANK* DIRECTLY = 2 business days

(*Or a credit union that accepts Wise as a bank)

Just do an EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer).

Set up Wise a an EFT bank to do a bank-to-bank transfer, confirm the nominal amounts to verify that you are on both accounts, and do a transfer like you would to any other bank in Canada.

On EQ Bank however, I should mention they cap transfers of more than $50K, so any more than that, you would have to do multiple bank-to-bank transfers, but you can do as many as you want on the same calendar day, like $50K, $50K, $30K, all in a row.

Moving money from WealthSimple to EQ Bank took 2 business days; on the second business day it arrived because I initiated the transfer of bank-to-bank on Saturday around 9 a.m. EST and it was there at 3 .m. on the following Tuesday, taking into account the weekend.

Depositing cheques from another bank** + EQ Bank = 7 business days

**that is not EQ Bank or a credit union that approves them

So if you had a cheque from another bank of some amount, I would do the following to avoid fees (assuming time is of no consequence)

• Deposit cheque from TD Bank into EQ Bank = 5 business days
• Do a bank-to-bank transfer from EQ Bank to Wise = 2 business days
• Fees = $0

Of course, once you have the money in Wise, you need to convert it to the currency of your choice, so Wise will then take a fee on the conversion and tell you upfront what it will cost.

INTERAC FROM ANOTHER BANK = INSTANT

On Wise, you can initiate the transaction, meaning you can choose any bank you want and fund Wise with Interac transfers until the amount is fulfilled.

The fee I have paid in the past for this, is only $0.31 CAD. Literally cents to fund the account from another bank, so do not stress over it.

You get the money right away, and $0.31 is worth it.

Your bank may cap how much you can send via Interac each day, I know the following limits are:

• Tangerine = $3000 a day, $10,000 max a week
• EQ Bank = $10,000 a day (but just do an EFT with Wise if you have EQ Bank)
• WealthSimple = $10,000 a day

The good news is if you need the money in a pinch, and it is less than $3000 – $10,000 depending on your bank, you can get the money instantly via Interac.

Note: You can also set up your bank as a connected bank to Wise.

Remember it is one-way, which means you cannot set up Wise as a bank-to-bank on your main bank, but you can set up your main bank in Wise as a banking source). It makes things cheaper if you do this, you pay slightly less money and it knows to take the money from your confirmed bank, and it assumes you have the money already there, so it bypasses controls to send the money quicker. Then it debits your account the following day of the amount you wish to send.

If you need more……

TRANSFERRING LARGE AMOUNTS

…then anything over $25K I would assume is for them, a large amount of money, and there are two crucial things you need to know:

1) You need to verify yourself ahead of time.

They will send you a link you log in, and take a picture of your passport, then a selfie right after within their link, and they verify it.

You cannot take a separate picture outside of this link and send it; it has to be done real-time in their app with their functionality for max security.

2) The window to fulfill the amount you initiated on Wise is 14 days

So if you want to send $30K USD, which converted, would cost $40,800 CAD, you have up to 14 days to send the full amount of $40,800.

This is of course, then mathematically impossible with Interac with Tangerine, as it would be in increments of $3000 to a max of $10,000 a week. You would need a little over 4 weeks to do this transfer of $40,800 but by that time, the window closes on Wise on the transaction.

To transfer this amount of money, you would have to either:

(A) Load the account with money ahead of time

…then initiate the transfer from Wise into the currency of your choice.

(B) Bill Pay the amounts

Similarly to EFTs, on Wise you can initiate the transaction (choose any bank you want) and bill pay the full amount, using your Wise ID # as the bill payment code.

Tangerine for instance, caps bill payments at $25K per transaction, and EQ Bank caps bill payments at $50K per bill. So just keep paying until you hit the amount that Wise is initiated for.

 

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That is about it of what I have used this card for, hope this helps you frequent travellers or heavy online shoppers.