Transfer Money Home to Brazil
Sunday, June 20th, 2010If you are trying to send or receive funds through a money transfer but are not in your home country, then get ready to deal with a lot of issues when you do not have a bank account in the country you are in.
Don’t worry though, there are systems that let you wire cash to the other person through a location based service which requires recipients to present a password in order to collect the money.Since September 11 this system has been tightened as this was the easiest way for terrorists to send money around the globe. Now, usually both the sender and recipient must present I.D. to take advantage of this form.
Brazilian immigrants based in the U.S. consistently wire money an average of just once a month. Experts estimate it averages out to 400 U.S. dollars a month.
The U.S. isn’t the only major nation transferring into Brazil though. Brazil also receives remittance from Japan at the same average of once a month. Japan however, averages the equivalent of 600 U.S. dollars a month, making it one of the leaders in contributing nations.
So how exactly do people even get that money there? Some use a bank’s wire service, which requires both members to have an account with the bank. This doesn’t always work out considering the sender may not be able to open an account because of their immigration status, or the receiver may not be in a state where they can open up a Brazilian account – a huge reason why people leave the country for other countries such as the U.S. or Japan.
People have also usedhave also turned to courier services or traditional mailboxes. However, not only do options like these take anywhere from days to weeks before the money arrives, there is also the question of how reliable the system really is. Oftentimes, money wired through systems such as these never even arrives.
Those needing to send money to Brazil may do so by using one of the numerous offline services. Be cautious though, the exchange rate converts one U.S. dollar into two Brazilian Reais in addition to an additional 10% fee – give or take a few percentage points. After all is said and done you’ll be left with less than if you were to just wire the money within the United States.
Yet another option is to wire cash through a pre-paid ATM or debit card. The sender simply buys the card and sends it through FedEx, a well-known courier service.
The card costs a mere $5 and you are permitted to send up to $1000. You can also trust that the funds will arrive safely and your recipient will not be forced to check the mail every day or even have to drive to one of the location-based companies just the get the money. The even greater perk of this method is that to add money the sender simply jumps on the phone or on the web to add cash to the card in just minutes. It’s no wonder so many more people are turning to this option – it is by far one of the fastest, most convenient forms of transferring. This way seems to be even safer than traditional methods that have survived for decades.