A Practical Guide to Moving Money Abroad When You’re Absolutely Clueless (Like I Was)

Last time I wrote about the theory of exchange rates - what they are, why they change and how they changed my house purchase into a bit of a nail-biter. This time I wanted to get a little more practical about how I actually moved my money from a British bank account into a Swedish one including the factors I considered before I made the choice and the safety procedures I used. 

Just a reminder that I’m a coach - not an adviser and certainly not a currency broker - so this is just what I did and what I learned doing it, not a recommendation for what you should be doing with your money. 

The Three Routes I Considered For Transferring My Money Abroad

When I first started looking into this I was just absolutely stumped, anxious and overwhelmed about this - it feels like proper grown up stuff to me and, not really having anybody in my family who’s moved abroad recently, it felt very ‘foreign’ (for want of a better word…). As one does nowadays, I started googling, and then you just get loads of adverts and AI suggestions. As I do nowadays I started to look on Reddit - not that I take anything on there as gospel, but it gives me an indication of what's out there.

Things started to settle into broadly three different ways to get a big sum of money from one country to another and I had a proper look at all three, then took a couple of weeks break to think it through, before I settled on one. 

My Bank

This is the obvious first stop because it’s the option that requires the least brain power - just log in and press a button. But for most people it’s going to be the most expensive and by some margin! Banks tend to build their profits into the exchange rate that they offer, rather than charging a separate fee, so that can look deceptively simple whilst costing you quite a bit. It is becoming more common to charge a separate fee though, in order to be more transparent which is actually how my bank would have done it. 

My bank, Starling, were actually quite reasonable and charge a 0.4% fee and then use the Mastercard exchange rate which as I write, on the 28th of September 2026, is £1 to 13.21 SEK. The 0.4% fee is actually calculated into the exchange rate when the exchange happens so that would make the rate 13.16 (that’s 0.4% off the rate itself and rounded).

They also then add a ‘delivery fee’ which is either 30p for a slower and more winding process (which can’t be recalled and is harder to track) or £5.50 for a priority SWIFT delivery - though this is taken from your remaining balance and not what you’re transferring. And the receiving bank may add their own fee on top of that. 

Ultimately I chose not to use Starling because they have a limit on how much you can send, different for each currency it seems, and it wasn’t enough for me. 

In the interests of this blog post I looked up some other banks and found - interestingly I think - that it’s really hard to get an honest answer! HSBC for example have different variations where you can have an account which deals with up to 18 different currencies and the transfer is fee free (HSBC's site says the rate includes a conversion charge but not what that charge is), you can also transfer money fee-free between HSBC bank accounts in different countries or you can do an international transfer and then fees will apply, but I couldn't find a clear percentage. Some competitors suggest this might be up to 3.5%!! 

Specialist Currency Brokers

I spoke to a few of these because I’d heard they were good for these one off transfers like a house deposit - I’m also generally a fan of brokers (love an insurance broker for example) because they really know what they’re doing and I feel like I can relax into their expertise. You get a dedicated person to speak to, which is better than any bank I know and, importantly, the offer of a forward contract which locks in today’s rate for a transfer you might make in a few weeks or months. 

There were a few very salesy, and perhaps a bit suspicious companies - you know when you’ve filled in a form but not clicked ‘go’ and then they’re already ringing your phone - yikes! With a couple of the companies it felt a bit like pulling teeth to get a quote out of them - they spent a lot of time emphasising that this was just the rate right now, to be used as an example, but it would change if I chose not to lock in straight away. 

I’ll be honest, the only thing that really put me off using this service was really the price - they were similar to what the high street banks were offering both of those were more expensive than the next type. Although the amount of money is really significant to me, it was a simple, one-off transfer that would happen relatively quickly once I’d made the decision to do it so the specialist service didn’t seem worth it to me. 

Online Transfer Services

I ended up going with Wise (this is by no means an advert although they were great). Really, the thing I liked the best was the transparency. Theirs was the only website where I could literally type in what I wanted to transfer and it would give me the answer of what I would get at the end of it. They used a mid-market rate, the one you get when you google and then there was a clean fee on top of it (there was also a discount because it was a lot of money). I didn’t have to speak to anybody on the phone, which pleases the millennial in me. 

Once I’d signed up with them, which you do after you get the actual quote, they take you through the process which is essentially getting the money to an account in their name and then as soon as the money hits, they send that money into the account you want it to end up in. There are a few choices on either side, none of them cost money I don’t think but some took a bit more time than others.

The mid-market rate at the time of writing is 13.2 SEK to the £1 and they have a fee of 0.35% but you get discounts if you’re sending over £20,000. This will have changed by the time you’re reading this (the exchange rate has actually changed a bit as I’ve been writing it!). 

I chose to pay £1 into the account first to check that I had all the details right before sending the rest of my lump sum and that caused a little hooha which meant I had to ring somebody at Wise to check it was right. The guy was very thorough in checking the process because apparently nobody has ever done that before and he wasn’t sure how it would work (but it just seems sensible to me to test the process and I do that whenever I send money to a new account) but the £1 appeared after a couple of hours so I felt okay about transferring the rest which I probably did at around 2pm. The money appeared in the Wise account and was sent to my Swedish account that same day and it hit the Swedish account the next day. Super quick!

Which Service To Choose

I think all of them have their pluses and downsides which I hope I explained and I also will point out here, the cheapest option is not necessarily the best option if spending a little more will protect your sanity or peace of mind for whatever reason. I’m especially thinking if you have a long run up on something but need the security of a fixed rate in advance, that would be a real reason to go for a broker. 

Safety Checks

Firstly, there are the safety checks you must do for yourself - my £1 situation above would be one of those to check I hadn’t made a typo in the bank account number or something. The funny thing about that test though, is that the bank supplying the mortgage on the Swedish side also queried that £1 thing. They just couldn’t understand why I would have sent that first. All I had to do was explain my reasoning, as they had a really clear path of where the money had been and was going but it made me laugh because it seems such an obvious check to me! I’m pleased there were so many eyes on it, though, lots of people looking out for me and against fraudsters and crooks!

Then there are other basic online safety tips like typing out the website yourself rather than clicking on links from google, checking that the website has a lock logo and checking that the companies you’re using are regulated under the FCA and the equivalent in the other country. 

Then there are the checks that the services might want to make. My bank did an automatic check - there was a lot of ‘this is a lot of money, are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ and ‘what are you sending this money for?’ and ‘is anybody forcing you to make this payment?’ - which is great! Annoying but great that they’re looking out for scams. Apparently Wise might check, asking for statements, proof of a sale that sort of thing - although I don’t remember them doing it for me. This is anti-money-laundering stuff, so just accept that it will probably happen and get your bits together, especially if timing is important. 

What I’d Tell A Friend

I’d be saying something like - check the actual amount that lands at the other end - not just the headline rate because that might not be spot on when fees get involved. Check that whoever you’re using is properly regulated - that’s authorised by the FCA in the UK and you can check who regulates providers in the receiving country. Think honestly about your timeline and whether locking in a rate will soothe your soul because that might point to using a broker rather than an online service like I did. And finally, have your paperwork together early because fiddle-faddling with that sounds stressful to me. 

The End

Honestly, exchange rates are boring right up until the point when they matter to you and could cost you £100s. Moving big amounts of money abroad is not something I ever thought I’d have to deal with but, once you’re up against something, you just have to do it, don’t you? One foot in front of the other and make a decision. It might not be the ‘best’ decision but you can trust that you will probably make an okay one if you keep your wits about you. 

I’m glad I spent time comparing my options properly and I do feel I made the right choice. It didn’t stop me procrastinating on things though - once again I found myself doing the washing up or grooming the cat before I was able to force myself to sit and do the thing - my brain was convinced that this was a scary, and possibly dangerous thing. It wasn’t. I hope talking you through my journey might settle your brain if that’s why you’re here!

If you’ve moved money abroad, or you’re about to, I’d love to hear how you got on or your worries. Come and find me!

Love Eleanor. xxx