This is probably the question international money transfer companies get asked most frequently. And it's not one that comes with a hard and fast answer.

Money Never Sleeps

Over the weekend I watched one of my favourite movies of all time, Oliver Stone's 1987 financial drama Wall Street.

In it there's an iconic scene where ruthless corporate trader Gordon Gekko, brick-like Motorola DynaTac 8000x in hand, calls his young protege from the beach outside his home in the Hamptons.

Bud Fox stumbles out of bed, reaches for the telephone and is greeted by Gekko's immortal phrase "Money never sleeps, pal. Just made 800,000 in Hong Kong gold. It's been wired to you."

This being a fictional movie we will never know how long the wire transfer took to reach Fox but were it sent today he could have been waiting anything between 1 and 5 business days. Or possibly even longer.

Many moving parts

You see, while money may never sleep, thanks to the 24*7 nature of international financial markets, cross border payments can be subjected to the odd nap as the transaction navigates its way through multiple jurisdictions and institutions.

Potential delays beyond the control of your payment provider lurk around every corner. And delays inevitably extend the time it takes for the funds to reach your recipient.

Some of the most common of these are:

• KYC and compliance checks: These can happen at various stages of the transfer process and can add significant delay.
• Weekends and public holidays: Banks don't process transfers on weekends or public holidays. This means that if you send money on a Friday or before a holiday, it will most likely not move until the next working day.
• Incorrect recipient details: Banks in several regions have tightened up their validation such that if the recipient name given is not a 100% match the funds are returned with an invalid bank details message. The recipient name must then be corrected and a new transfer set up.

Choose the right payment provider

GlobalWebPay make every effort to ensure that your payment is sent via the quickest route possible. 

Their human only support team are ready to assist whenever an issue occurs with a payment and they will resolutely work with their partners to resolve these.

With a low flat fee, competitive exchange rates, and no hidden charges, GlobalWebPay is the smarter choice for making personal, business and charitable cross-border payments from the UK.

So, if you are looking to send some money abroad why not SIGN UP with GlobalWebPay today and pay no fee on your first transfer by entering the FEEFREE promo code at Checkout.

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