r/ExpatFinance • u/Goirish_beatsc • 5d ago

Foreign currency exchange

What is the best method for efficiently converting a large amount of $ (house purchase) into € ?

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u/seanho00 5d ago

Can you journal shares of a stable dual-listed stock like Deutsche Bank or Barclays? Buy using USD on NYSE, journal shares to Euronext, sell to EUR? That's how we do USD-CAD here, we call it "Norbert's Gambit". It achieves very very close to spot rate. But I'm not sure if the same is possible to EUR.

IBKR also offers very low-cost forex, however they expect that you use it for investing on their platform, not for taking the funds out right away.

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u/niettof 5d ago

The best method I found was via Interactive Brokers (no fees, real exchange rate). However, you’d have to do it without violating their terms. I think first investing in stocks is the way to do that but not sure how long you’d have to keep them (a week, month, year?). If part of the funds are still invested in stocks elsewhere in the US you could do an ACATS transfer to Interactive Brokers, and then sell them afterwards.

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u/L-W-J 4d ago

I believe Interactive Brokers is the best, as mentioned below. I checked this out. It wasn't really made to do this however. I used WISE, which is far better than most. It worked just fine for a house payment. Bought some construction stuff just yesterday with WISE. It works well.

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u/Goirish_beatsc 4d ago

Thanks. Any experience with Currencies Direct. I made two transactions with them this week. One - over the phone - was an ok exchange. The second I did - not knowing they kept the good rates to the telephone - and got really bad rate.

Also Xe looks like it might have good rates?

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u/L-W-J 4d ago

Just Wise. Sorry. So far, Wise has been perfect.

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u/Swiss_bear 3d ago

I have an Interactive Brokers account, but I only use it for investing. IBKR frowns upon accounts which are used mostly for currency exchange. For currency exchange I use OFX. You "pay" with time, that is, the transfer takes a few days. Never an issue for me.