How I made my first big currency transfer – without the worries

Good morning,

World First client Louise Plant has just bought a property in Spain. She explains why she did it, her plans for the future and how though she was nervous about the process of making a big currency transaction, there was really no need.

We bought our property in Spain, about 45 minutes from Alicante – in a place called Jacarilla. My parents and in-laws have a property there, and we’ve been going for the last eight or nine years on holiday with the family, we saw a bargain, and thought “you know what, let’s just do it!”

What’s great about it? Well, there’s nobody there! It’s very Spanish. There’s a really tiny village with one street of about eight shops, nothing much to do, but that’s what’s good about it! It’s all about the relaxed way of life.

Next year is all about furnishing it, making it a home. We’ve pre-booked already for January and February, and will pre-book for July, and hopefully if me and my husband can get the odd weekend here and there away – and the kids too – we can get out there as often as possible.

We put the deposit down while we were actually over there, through our bank, and they charged us crazy money to do a transfer – there was a transaction fee and they didn’t give us a great rate. And that’s what made me think there’s got to be a better way of doing this.

This was our first time using a currency exchange company, and going into it, I found it scary! I registered with about six or seven currency companies, and we were just watching the rates, and World First came out as the best one. Once I decided on World First, I did the deal with Alex [Louise’s account manager] on my break at work, it was daunting, but Alex was so good, calming – I was in a complete panic – but I can’t fault the process at all.

For anyone like me, who’s thinking about doing a currency transfer for the first time, I’d say you’ve got to trust the company you’re using to process it properly. One thing I did do was read the reviews on your site – I did for all the companies – and get an idea of what you’re all about. I trusted World First, and I just got on with it.

To simply describe the process to people that haven’t done this before, in my case I called Alex and asked what’s your best rate? Then I had to transfer the funds within a day or two. Then I logged on and gave the details of the receiving account – my bank account in Spain where I wanted the money to go. Then the next day, I would call Alex in a panic and say have you got the money yet! He told me not to worry – it was there! Then the payment was made into my Spanish bank account the very same day that World First received my money. I was so impressed with the speed.

I had to pay the 10% to fix the rate, and gave a date of roughly when we would be transferring. The forward contract did give me peace of mind but the rate went up after I fixed the rate, so that was a bit frustrating, but we knew what we had to spend and most we wanted to spend, so we fixed at a rate that we knew we would be happy with. But apart from that, once I’d arranged the forward contract and put the 10% down, I knew I could relax a bit and move on.

Having that calming person to deal with was such a help, and Alex kept me up to date with things, which built my confidence in your company. It was great to have a direct line and a direct email. It wasn’t just Alex I spoke to, but everyone I spoke to – I couldn’t fault them.

If you, like Louise, are buying property abroad, World First can help make the whole process of making a currency transfer easy.

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Disclaimer: Please note any provider recommendations, currency forecasts or any opinions of our authors or users should not be taken as a reference to buy or sell any financial product.