Azimo’s test & review: international bank transfers at lower cost. Referral link to get 10€

This post isn’t not sponsoredIf you would like to receive a discount, we offer a referral link. This also gives us a small commission, but you are absolutely not obliged to use it

If you wish to use Azimo, click on this link and you will receive a €10 promotional code as a referral.

Even though we’ve been traveling around the world for the past two years, we hadn’t needed to make transfers outside the SEPA zone and/or in a foreign currency until now.

On a daily basis, we use our N26 and Revolut cards, which allow us to pay and withdraw money free of charge, regardless of the currency.

Within the framework of our future trip to Egypt, our local agency asks us for the payment of a deposit by bank transfer, in American dollars!

• Problem n°1: the Egyptian bank account is outside the SEPA zone, so significant fees are to be expected.
• Problem #2: the dollar isn’t the local currency, how to make it receive dollars?

My first reflex is to look at Revolut and N26. Failure: they do not allow transfers outside the SEPA zone.

We are therefore studying the possibility of making a transfer with our “traditional” banks (Société Générale and Boursorama) but the costs are high: €35 in fees just for the transfer outside the SEPA zone to which we will have to add exchange fees and commissions (the amounts of which aren’t really clear).

So I’m thinking of turning to the Transferwise solution that I’ve never used before but have heard great things about. New problem: I can’t send dollars to Egypt, only the local currency (Egyptian pound) is available.

That’s when we discovered the Azimo solution!

Azimo is a competitor to Transferwise, their network of partners allows you to send money to almost any country in the world with much lower fees than traditional banks.

In countries where you can’t withdraw much and there is a fixed commission for each withdrawal (Chile, Argentina…) I know that many travelers use Azimo to send cash to themselves, instead of withdrawing at the ATM.

The operation mode is really simple.

You must first choose the country, the currency and the method of reception of your transaction (it is even possible to request a cash withdrawal, as for a Western Union).

Note: Azimo’s customer service on Facebook advised us, in our case, to choose the SWIFT mode.

You must then fill in the recipient’s personal details (surname, first name, address, …) and bank details.

Then, you enter the amount you want to send (or that your correspondent should receive), the calculation of what it will cost you is instantaneous.

As an example, receiving $1000 will cost you €866.17 while the actual course (without any fees) is €855.10. This is a difference of only 1.2%.

Last step: the choice of payment method: either by card or bank transfer.

Since this was my first use, Azimo asked me to prove my identity by downloading a copy of my passport, which was quickly validated.

Less than 72 hours later, the recipient received my transfer.

Super efficient!

If you wish to use Azimo, click on this link and you will receive a 10 € promotional code as a referral.

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