OFX Rates and Fees
At OFX we offer great rates, meaning when you move your money around the globe you can be confident that you’ll be keeping more of your money.
Rates – Check the wholesale rate, otherwise known as Market rate, on the most popular currency pairs here before you initiate your money transfer. These rates are for reference only and are not indicative of the OFX Customer Rate.
Margin – means the difference between the exchange rate we quote to you and the wholesale exchange rate we obtain from our provider.
The rate shown to you when you log in to get a quote is the OFX Customer Rate.
You can use OFX to transfer money in over 50 currencies and to 170+ destinations. We use a global network of payment and banking providers. We currently have [insert number of banks/accounts] globally however we don’t have a local bank account in all jurisdictions. That means at times we need to use a third-party intermediary or bank to get the payment to your beneficiary. This third-party intermediary or bank may deduct a fee from the value of your transfer. This fee may vary and OFX receives no portion of it.
Where we have a local bank account in the currency and destination country of your payment/transfer, we will credit the beneficiary’s bank account with a domestic transfer from a bank account in that county using the same currency.
If an OFX transaction fee is payable, you will see this within your quote and it will be added to the total amount you need to transfer to OFX. You can also find this in your Deal Confirmation.
Third Party and Intermediary Fees
What are they?
If the remitting bank (i.e. the sending bank) and the beneficiary bank (i.e. the receiving bank) don’t have direct relationships, then an international transfer will go through a third party connecting them, called an intermediary bank.
Intermediary banks are generally only involved when making international transfers via the SWIFT network.
SWIFT stands for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications.
When banking on the SWIFT network, banks can have direct and indirect relationships.
A direct relationship means the sending and receiving banks can exchange payment instructions directly.
An indirect relationship requires an intermediary to connect the sending and receiving banks.
Therefore, it can be said that for international SWIFT transactions in which banks do not have a direct relationship, an intermediary bank will have to be involved.
Who pays for intermediary bank fees?
In a typical transaction, there are two parties, Party A: the remitter and Party B: the beneficiary.
In most cases the beneficiary will be charged the fee by the intermediary bank deducting the applicable amount from the transfer value.
What fees can be deducted?
- Intermediary bank fee – fee taken by a financial institution that has a relationship with neither the underlying customer nor the recipient for the purpose of the transaction and simply acts as a facilitator between the sending institution and the receiving institution.
- Beneficiary bank fee – fee charged by the receiving institution. This is usually agreed to by the beneficiary.
- Payment return fee – if a payment is sent back, a fee could be charged by any of the banks for processing the return
When are fees deducted?
- We strive to find the most direct route to the beneficiary in most cases, but sometimes it is not possible to avoid an intermediary. We found this occurs most when the payment is being paid offshore as our partner banks are less likely to have a direct relationship with the beneficiary bank.