Any American planning to buy property in Italy should read this!

If you are looking to purchase a property in Italy, you will (obviously) have to pay for it in EUROS. If you go to your private bank to exchange your US Dollars to Euros, they will basically charge you an arm and a leg on the exchange rate and charge you wire transfer fees as well. Anyone who has done this will know what I am talking about. There is no telling how long it will take to actually do the exchange, as banks do not specialize in these types of transactions.

A better idea would be to go to a specialized currency broker, such as HiFX, Inc. They charge no fees for their services, and can save you an average of 1% to 3% on the exchange. That means if you buy a 200,000 Euro property you could save a few thousand dollars! There is also no obligation to use them so if you just want to call and get a quote on a rate that is perfectly fine. Check out the website at www.hifx.com.

Anyone who has questions, please feel free to respond to this post.

There are a number of these foreign exchange specialists around. It pays to shop around in order to get the best rate.

Praetor,

True, all of the brokers can offer similar rates (which is lower than the banks). Unless the currency broker is charging you a fee to use their service, they are pretty much even on that front. Any given day one broker might give you a better rate than another.

However, some currency brokers can be used as resources in other ways. For example, HiFX is the only currency broker to be consistently ranked in the top 3 currency exchange forecasters in the world by Reuters. They regularly contribute to all the leading press as experts (Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, etc) and their experts speak on Bloomberg television. In other words, they can accurately monitor movements in the exchange rates and give you a pretty good indication of where the rates will be in the future, all at no cost to the individual. When purchasing large sums of money, timing is everything, as exchange rates can fluctuate by 5%-10% in only a couple months.

Check out their various articles and television appearances, here: http://www.hifx.com/press/

If anyone has any questions about this, please feel free to email me at thomas.wight@hifx.com

Cheers,

Tom

Tom

A lot of my clients use Money Corp as they get very good rates. How do you differ from them?

Moneycorp and HiFX offer similar service and rates, however, like most other currency brokers Moneycorp may charge the individual a flat fee per transfer, while HiFX does not charge any fees. It is always worth it for individuals to shop around to get the best rates and service. In addition, unlike Moneycorp, HiFX is one of the only independent currency specialists in the UK with direct access to SWIFT, the world's largest payment settlement network for domestic and international trades. This enables the individual to take advantage of faster payments, enhanced security and automated straight through processing. Finally, HiFX is the only currency broker to be ranked in the Reuters poll as one of the most accurate currency forecasters (as stated above) so that individuals with questions or concerns about the market can get better answers.

I think with regards to transferring money, they can all offer great rates. I shopped around and decided to go with Moneycorp in the end becuase they were so unbelievably helpful.

They do a charge a fee but i think that can be waived, but beware if companies don't charge the fee, they will make up that fee by offering worse rates.

At the end of the day, they all do the same thing, i transferred USD to america to buy some dresses and they transferred money the same day (they also use SWIFT) and emailed me to let me know!! And they call me up or email me to update me on the US dollar and they really take the time to explain everything! Honestly i was shocked by the speed and effieicency.

One of the best companies i have ever dealt with. You really don't feel like you're dealing with some massive company. It's like a family.

Looking to buy a house in Italy now so thought i'd visit this website.

One thing to consider also are the charges applied by the receiving bank in Italy. Bank charges in Italy are high compared to most other countries (the government even takes a charge from your balance for the privilege of having a bank account!!).

Shop around carefully for a bank in Italy too, because if you decide to change bank you will be stung for charges too.

I did use HIFX to wire 10.000 US dollars to an account in Italy. I double cheked if there was a saving if it was compared to use a bank : I did receive 200+ Euro ( About 300 US dollars) more in the Italian account then the exchange rate offered by Nations Bank.
( I asked Nations bank
They also gave me suggestion on the exchange timing plus you can lok in at any time you like a rate.

Paolo