My Experience Transferring Money (CAD - MYR) with TransferWise

In this post, I mentioned that I was busy figuring out the best way to transfer my money from my Canadian bank account to my Malaysian bank account. A few options that I have been considering are sending the money through the bank service; bringing them back to Malaysia all in cash, or using the TransferWise.

I was all set to bring them back all in cash until a few of my favourite Instagram shops decided to have a Ramadan sale! Allahu. I wanted to buy all those things that were on sale but I did not have money. I only had MYR 20 in my Malaysian bank account and obviously, I can't buy those things with MYR 20. That's when I decided to give TransferWise a try!

Initially, I wanted to transfer CAD 1000 but TransferWise requires senders from Canada to provide their bank statement and a document that verifies the home address if you're sending CAD 1000 and above. I have my bank statement but I don't have a document that verifies my address here because all my bills and documents are still addressed to my old address. The only document that may have my current address is my NOA but the CRA website was down on that weekend for maintenance purposes, so I couldn't download my NOA.

So, I settled with CAD 999. The process itself was seamless. You just have to enter your banking details and the recipient's banking details. Then, you just have to wait for the money to be deducted from your account and for the money to be deposited into the recipient's account. The whole process should take two business days.

In case you're not the most patient person in this world like me, please make the transaction during the banking hours on weekdays. I initiated the process on Friday and got my money on Monday which is technically what they promised - two business days, but in reality I had to wait for four days (including the weekend). So, there's that.

As for the payment method, you'll get a few options. I chose direct debit because it was the cheapest option offered. I believe there are other five options including direct debit but the options will be narrowed down to two if you're sending a much higher amount. All options have different prices and will change according to the amount that you're sending.

Additionally, the total fee also will change according to the amount that you're sending. The bigger the amount that you're sending, the higher the fee. I found the fee to transfer CAD 999 to MYR to be affordable and quite cheap? I paid CAD 14.76 to transfer CAD 999.

Likewise, I found the exchange rate they used competitive. The rate that they quoted for my transaction was almost similar to the rate that I found on Google. So, I was happy. And, honestly, this was the main reason why I decided to try transferring my money using TransferWise; the competitive exchange rate. Though, to be honest, I was quite bummed after that because a day after I initiated the transaction, the exchange rate reached my desired threshold but that was not TransferWise's fault.

Conclusively, I was happy with my experience with TransferWise. The whole process was hassle-free and I got my money in a timely manner. In fact, I have finished spending and saving the money that I sent through TransferWise. Currently, I only have MYR 13.34 in my bank account. That's less than what I previously had. lol. Probably will be using TransferWise at least one more time before I close my Canadian bank account. We'll see.