Well stated!
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An update here:
I looked into the exchange rates across multiple banks and Transferwise.
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Transferwise does let you transfer more than $15K, but you have to do it via wire transfer (rather than ACH) and into an “account”. There is a $5.34 per transaction fee they charge for every transfer. They ask for some simple account verifications.
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I looked into the rates on a day to find which had the best
Transferwise: 100K USD = 84,242 Euros
Chase: 100K USD = 82,950 Euros
First Republic: 100K USD = 81,486 Euros
First Republic preferred desk (if > $100K): 100K USD = 84,190 Euros
Thus in this sample set, Transferwise had the best rates. Followed by First Republic preferred desk. And then Chase.
My contact at Bison bank said there were no issues to receiving money from Transferwise.
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@wanderlust000 Did you check on transferring dollars to Bison Bank (a multi-currency account) and having them exchange those dollars for Euros with no markup? That seems like the winning move to me on both price and provenance considerations.
My contact at Bison Bank told me that they’re perfectly happy to receive money from Transferwise or Bullionstar or whatever, but that they’ll have to document the source of funds to SEF, and SEF won’t like anything other than a clean transfer from a traditional financial institution.
I looked into the best way to send money abroad and a listicle I found named one of the usual suspects (transferwise) which I had used before, and then OFX which I had not heard of but which was recommended for better rates that transferwise.
I set up an OFX account, and during set up I was asked how mush I intended to send. I replied honestly that it was going to be in the $400k range (as I am doing the Portuguese Golden visa). Within 15 minutes of signing up I had a very chipper call from a British fellow at OFX telling me he would be my account rep and promising to get me better rates than anyone else. Two weeks later he gave me a follow up call, and I explained that my plans remained the same but that I had noticed that transferwise was offering better rates for amounts in excess of $10k. My rep was very apolegetic and promised to fix that immediately. Ever since, before I send money, I check the rates between transferwise and OFX and OFX has always had the better rate. The saves me may $25 on smaller transfers (e.g. $3k), but will add up for larger transfers.
My take away is that if you open an OFX account for the purpose of GV investment, let them know how much you intend to transfer. You will likely get enthusiastic customer service. Whether you are an existing OFX customer or only intend to sign up, give them a call before making large transfers and request a better rate that transferwise.
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Today I performed a live currency exchange comparison between Transferwise and Bison Bank.
Scenario: exchange $2400 USD into Euros
Date and time: 2021-02-08 09:32 -0800 (PST)
Transferwise: 2400 USD → 1977.03 EUR
Bison Bank: 2400 USD → 1990.86 EUR
Yes, I was able to open my Bison Bank account without any major hitches. There was definitely more process and paperwork involved than I’m accustomed to, but it was tractable. You would need assistance from a lawyer for document authentication, and you need to ink sign and ship ~25 pages of physical forms to the bank before the account can be opened.
Nuno at Bison Bank cautioned me that transferring money through non-traditional channels can cause friction with SEF. Bison doesn’t mind receiving money from here and there, but Bison will document the source of funds to SEF, and SEF reputedly prefers to see that it came from a documented and legitimate source through traditional channels. I suspect it can be resolved with additional documentation, but I don’t want to risk slowing down my application by a month for a preventable exception.
How did you Novo Banco experience go?
We had good experience with Activo, but that was a while ago and not for golden visa. Unfortunately, account was closed since then. So not sure which bank to choose and importantly, would not to want to waste time talking to a bank or a person at the bank who does not understand how to deal for non-residents.
Cheers
Regarding wire transfer of funds to Portuguese Bank for Investment: has anyone used a third part such as TransferWise or other instead of their own bank’s service to reduce costs?
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Yes we used TransferWise. Very easy though for large sums, like your initial investment, you have to jump thru a bunch of hoops to prove where the funds came from. This is all to stop money laundering, so I totally understand, but it can be a hassle.
Bison Bank exchanges dollars for euros for no fee or markup. An international wire transfer of dollars from Fidelity or Schwab only costs a few dollars. I posted an apples-to-apples comparison here:
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Thank you.
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That’s not as good as it used to be, but it’s still a good rate.
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Okay, thank you!
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Interactive Brokers is actually a better and more competitive alternative. I recently used them to turn my USD to EUR and transfer the entire amount needed for GV over to my PT account.
A few pointers if you go this route:
Do the following steps in approximately 100k $ chunks until the desired balance is reached in your PT account
- Transfer cash from your US bank account to your IBKR account via wire — You don’t want to wait for days for the money to settle during which time the favorable window to buy EUR has passed.
- Buy EUR on the spot market in chunks — Or in one whole swoop if you prefer but the EUR is in a downward trend right now so why not trade with the pattern?
- Transfer your EUR cash to your PT bank account via SEPA — This minimizes the fees. If your bank is like mine, they charge 19€ for wire transfer into my PT account. However, it is 0€ if it is a SEPA transfer. Moreover, IBKR charges 1€ for SEPA but 8€ for wire after the first free transfer for the month.
The reason for the 100k $ chunk is because IBKR charges an interest rate for excess cash of any currency sitting in your account — Yes, you pay to keep cash in the account. So do it in chunks and save yourself a few dollars.
Lastly, send a test transfer of a small amount before you send a 6 figure amount to make sure the plumbing is all correct between IBKR and your bank. The last thing you want is your hard-earned cash goes into the ether.
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That is extremely excellent advice, especially about transferring 100k chunks at a time. I transferred all 350K worth of USD at once and had serious issues due to the negative interest and a bug in their system.
Essentially, when i went to withdraw the funds to my Portuguese bank and copied and pasted the “funds available to transfer”, the transfer would be rejected. Calling them I would learn that I didn’t have that amount of funds available (due to negative interest). I tried that 2 more times, both times with representatives on the phone instructing me how much to withdraw, both times failed. Finally, i attempted a withdrawal that was 500 EUR less than the stated amount and finally the transfer succeeded.
This ordeal meant that instead of just a few days of negative interest, i had almost a few weeks costing me several hundred euros and a lot of frustration. I’m sent them a support ticket asking for a reimbursement of this negative interest because i think it’s ridiculous that they can’t tell me how much is available to withdrawal. Very unimpressed with Interactive brokers.
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Hi folks, I have had a few terrible experiences trying to figure out how to send money to Portugal. I’m trying to send it my account at Bison in USD using either Chase or Schwab. Wondering if someone can help with translating the instructions into lay man terms. Schwab’s wire transfer form is actually visible so I will go with that. I have three pieces of information from Bison
- My personal IBAN at Bison and Bison’s SWIFT code etc.
- Bison’s IBAN – I’m assuming with Caxia Geral Depositios (CGD) the correspondent bank
- CGD’s account number at CITI and CITI’s SWIFT code ( the intermediary for CGD in the US )
Schwab allows me to send these pieces of information:
- Destination Bank & For Credit to – I’m guessing this should be Citibank and CGD’s account number at Citi
- For further credit to Name and Bank A/c – I’m guessing this should be either my information or Bison’s so CGD can send it along
- Transmission notes – any additional notes ( these might not be read )
I understand that there is a good chance no one fully understands the exact correct thing to do but I am hoping with a few test transfers that might cost be 100-200$ I can figure out how to work this. I am hoping to weed out some of the possibilities by relying on some folks here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
I recommend you send Bison the Schwab form and ask them how to fill it out. And yes, definitely do one test transfer first.
You could wire a test sum directly to your Bison account’s SWIFT code and IBAN, and hope that they figure it out and do the right thing. Let us know if it works. 
Plan to lose about $50 in intermediary fees, best case.
I had a bad feeling about trying to proceed with Schwab; their process did not allow me to specify the important (required?) correspondent bank. I wired money from Schwab to Fidelity, then from Fidelity to Bison. It seems like a pretty low-friction process to create a Fidelity account; someone I know created a no-fee Fidelity account immediately with $1000 drawn from a traditional bank account.
Fidelity allows you to specify the correspondent bank, but you have to call them and persistently reason it out with a specialist. You will also need to send an electronic confirmation letter for a six figure wire transfer. I don’t mind all of this friction when large fractions of my life savings are moving around in no-recourse transactions.
Another option proposed by a recent poster is to create an Interactive Brokers account, buy Euros on the FX market, and send those Euros to your Bison account using a low-cost SEPA transfer. That may take longer, and be careful about the negative interest rates being charged daily for six figure Euro balances. It also smears out the provenance trail for your money, which may displease the SEF people. I may experiment with this approach soon for a low value property purchase. YMMV.
I also tried a $1000 TransferWise dollar transfer to my Bison dollar account. Fail. At least I didn’t get hit with any fees or penalties. It is said that SEF isn’t crazy about this approach either, at least for ARI funding.
It shouldn’t be this difficult.