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by William PlotnickWe covered all you need to know about XE; the good, the bad and the ugly.
It’s all here.
In this review, we will show you if XE is the right choice for your money transfer needs.
XE is a Canadian foreign exchange company. With over 25 years of successful company history, XE is a trusted international exchange company.
Through our due diligence, we found XE to be a great cost-effective replacement to banks when it comes to money transfers.
(4.6/5)
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XE is a secure, transparent, and quick way to send money around the world. There are no transfer fees, but XE does add a small margin to the market rate when transferring funds (like many other money transfer companies).
XE processed115 billion dollars last year and has thousands of happy customers according to Trustpilot.
Before we answer if XE is the right money transfer for you, let’s look at 5 things you should know about XE.
Transparency is a quality that we greatly appreciate when it comes to money transfer specialists.
When it comes down to sending money internationally, there are usually 3 main cost components: Rates, Fees and Hidden Costs.
Let’s dive into it!
Money transfer companies make a profit through transfer fees or through the exchange rate.
Okay, let’s talk about XE and how they add up. XE doesn’t charge transfer fees. That’s a big plus!
At the end of the day, they are a business and need to make a profit, that comes from the exchange rate. They add a small margin to the exchange rate depending on the amount transferred.
The more money transferred, the lower the margin on the exchange rate. On the other hand, a smaller money transfer will have a higher margin on the exchange rate.
Similar to most money transfer specialists, you won’t know the margin until you are ready to transfer the money.
XE.com has a currency converter on their site, but the exchange rate is the mid-market rate (not the actual rate you will get on the transfer).
Only after you sign up and decide to transfer money do you see the exchange rate that they offer.
Now that we covered rates and fees, let’s take a look at hidden costs
Many money transfer specialists have hidden costs that are quite honestly, annoying.
XE doesn’t have hidden costs when you transfer money.
But there is something to be aware of, occasionally third party banks charge a fee from the transfer before paying the recipient. This is not connected to XE whatsoever, but rather the bank of the recipient.
This is what XE has to say about that issue:
“Charges may occasionally be applied by a third party bank when transferring the funds to XE or before the funds arrive in the recipient account.”
Throughout our research, we put a great emphasis on exploring the reviews we found online. We believe that honest reviews from previous customers paint the real picture.
It’s important to remember that a review is an individual experience and should be taken with a “grain of salt.”
We felt most comfortable basing our review study off of Trustpilot.
XE has an “excellent” rating from Trustpilot ranging from over 35,000 reviews! Just because they got an excellent review doesn’t mean that the reviews were all positive.
Review breakdown:
| Review | Percentage Breakdown |
| Excellent | 86% |
| Good | 10% |
| Average | 2% |
| Poor | 1% |
| Bad | 1% |
After reviewing customer fees back, I was impressed with the positive feedback on XE, but I couldn’t ignore the negative reviews (2%).
So let’s get into the Ugly.
Out of 2% of negative reviews (Poor & Bad), we identified 3 types of complaints that customers repeated.
A handful of negative reviews had to do with money delays. XE takes this issue very seriously based on their responses.
The majority of the complaints seem to come from a lack of understanding in terms of how long the process takes. There were many cases when the responsibility was on the banks from the receiving end and not on XE.
Overall XE is very straight forward about the transfer time. We give them a fairly high rating in this category compared to the other money transfer specialists in the industry.
There were few customers that had verification issues and some that were all together blocked from making a transfer.
Money transfers are a regulated field and some customers were not approved. Most unapproved customers were due to a lack of ID requirements.
In 2019 HiFX merged into XE and they both joined forces. This caused confusion for HiFX customers because they weren’t sure how to go about transferring money.
XE noticed that confusion and commented that nothing changed, only the names merged. A previous HiFX user can use the same account that was established before the merge.
That was a taste of the good, the bad and the ugly. After our research, we are assured that XE is an excellent service despite the 2% of negative reviews.
XE has a great service being able to send money quickly and efficiently to the other side of the globe if needed.
Most of XE transfers go through in a matter of hours (usually the same day). XE gives customers an estimated delivery date. This is the earliest date that they can process your transfer.
Transfer speed isn’t the same for all transfers. There are 3 main determining factors:
Money transfers take time because each payment is passed through a few “middleman” banks before it reaches the recipient. This method is called SWIFT and basically is a global network of financial institutions.
On average XE takes between 1-4 days to complete a money transfer.
Thanks to the advancements in financial technology, we can send money across the globe quickly as safely.
XE has an excellent track record with over 25 years in the online money transferring industry. Security is a top priority with XE.
XE is authorized in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Austria, and New Zealand as an Electronic Money Institution.
They are regulated by FinCEN (USA), FinTRAC (CAN), FCA (UK), ASIC (AUS), QFE (NZL).
XE processed billions of dollars last year across 117 countries.
When you sign up with XE there is personal data that you must give to XE. This data is used only to identify you and the recipient of the money transfer.
XE holds on to this information for as long as necessary, no longer.
Yes. XE makes safety and security a main focus when dealing with customers.
Now that we established that XE is all around top of the line money transfer specialist, let’s check out how we sign up!
Making an account with XE is very straight forward, check out these steps:
Once approved, sending a money transfer is a piece of cake!
All you need to do is provide payment details, choose the currency, input amount you wish to transfer and add in recipient details.
There sure is!
XE has a money transfer app that is super easy to use. With close to 100,000 downloads on the Apple App Store and Google Play combined, the XE app has a rating of 4.6.
You can download and set up a free XE account on your phone to get started.
You made it! Let’s go over the main takeaways:
If you’re looking to send a money transfer, XE is a great option. They offer quick, transparent and safe money transfers that extend to 170 countries. XE is the money transfer specialist, with their assistance, you can be confident that you are in good hands.
William is the Head Content Editor at FinancePond. He holds a Masters of Arts from Colombia University and a Masters of Arts from New York University. In short, William is a blogging machine. In addition to writing for FinancePond, William runs a non-profit media arts company.
