Personal Features
Remitly
33
33
What Remitly offers
Remitly provides overseas money transfer services to:
- Foreign Bank Accounts
- Cash pick up locations
- Mobile Money solutions (not available in all countries)
Remitly also offers a regular transfer service for people who need to do repeated international money transfers for the same amount each time. For example, monthly pensions.
Remitly does not offer
- Personal account management
- Travel debit cards
- Digital wallet services
Sending limits apply to customers for international money transfers.
Xoom
33
33
Xoom lets personal customers transfer money to a significant number of countries, through different channels.
What Xoom does
- International money transfers
- Cash pick-ups
- International bill payments
- Home delivery of money
What Xoom doesn’t do
- Personal account managers
- Regular transfers
- Unique local multi-currency accounts
- Digital wallet
- FX optimised travel card
- Currency hedging tools
It's a draw!
Both Remitly and Xoom offer basic international money transfer services. Remitly and Xoom can send money to foreign banks, cash pick up locations, top up mobile credit (in some countries) and pay bills (in some countries). Neither offer any other features or benefits for individuals.
Draw
Business Benefits
Remitly
Remitly does not offer services for businesses. Their service is specialised and tailored for personal use.
Xoom
Xoom does not provide services for businesses.
It's a draw!
Neither Xoom nor Remitly offer money transfer services for businesses. It’s a draw and zero rating for both companies in the business category.
Draw
Fees & Exchange Rates
Remitly
8
8
Remitly fees are hidden within the exchange rate plus an additional fee on top. The fees on the exchange rate can be up to 2% of the transfer amount.
Additional fees apply for the transfer of funds. These can be simple for some countries and complex tiered fees for other countries.
Economy Transfer Fee - Up to US$3.99
Express Transfer Fee - Between US$4.99 and US$99.99 for larger transfer amounts when receiving in USD.
Xoom
8
8
Xoom fees
Exchange rate margin fee - This is up to 2% for commonly traded currencies, and can be more than 5% for exotic currencies.
Additional fees - The transfer fee varies based on the currencies being traded, the transfer amount, the payment method and the transfer method.
- Debit and credit card payments tend to attract added fees.
- Transfers to cash pick-up centers are typically more expensive than bank account transfers.
- The Bill Pay service comes with a flat transfer fee of $/£/€ 2.99. This is not including the exchange rate margin.
It's a draw!
Another draw. Xoom and Remitly rates are very high. Their exchange rate margins are very high and their additional fees are high also. Both have lower additional fees for local bank payments at a lower cost. The additional fees come with a very high cost for payments by credit / debit cards. Neither money transfer providers have attractive fees and exchange rates.
Draw
Ease of Use
Remitly
71
71
Registration - Remitly has a smooth account creation process. The website and mobile app are easy to use.
ID Verification - ID verification is not required for Tier 1 membership but this lowers the account sending limits. Tier 2 and 3 require increased proof of identification and source of funds. This can be a slower process.
Transfer speed - Generally between 2 - 3 days upon payment.
Low minimum transfer limits - Send under $5
Low maximum transfer limits - Transfer limits are tiered based on your ID verification. Even with tier 3 ID verification.
Low maximum sending limits - After full ID verification, you may only send up to $60,000 within 180 days. That’s low!
Sign up - Registration is simple, and becomes even easier for existing PayPal customers.
ID verification - Level 1 membership comes without the need for ID verification.
Payment options - Bank transfers, debit cards, credit cards and PayPal.
Mobile apps - Available for Android and iOS.
Minimum transfer amount - Low minimum transfer amount.
Transfer limit - Xoom has 24-hour, 30-day, and 180-day transfer limits.
Remitly wins!
Only by a small margin does Remitly win the ease of use category. Both companies have easy to use sign ups, apps and websites. Remitly can be slightly faster in sending money to destinations.
Winner
Support & Countries
Remitly
63
63
Destination countries - Remitly specialises in sending to South American, Asian and African countries. Sending to more popular countries like the UK, USA and Canada is not supported.
Language support - Remilty supports 11 languages. They have local settlement accounts for sending funds to Remitly freely and easily in Singapore, Australia, Europe, UK and the USA.
Customer service - Customer support can be contacted by their website’s online chat service. Phone support is also available but only in English and Spanish between 3:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. PT.
Xoom
75
75
Supported payment currencies - Xoom lets customers send money from more than 70 countries.It accepts payments in USD, CAD, EUR and GBP.
Supported destination currencies - Xoom lets you send money to around 130 countries, in around 80 currencies.
Supported countries for bill payments - Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicargua and Vietnam.
Multilingual customer support - Customers get multilingual customer support. Languages include English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Filipino, Chinese and Arabic.
Foreign language website access - Xoom's website is available in a number of languages such as French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Polish, Arabic, Filipino, Chinese and Vietnamese.
Xoom wins!
Remitly wins only by a small percentage. Xoom offers more destination countries to send money. Remitly has more options to communicate with customer support. Xoom’s customer reviews show that Xoom has some issues with customer communication and issue resolution.
Winner
Trust & Transparency
Remitly
25
25
Transparency - Remitly’s transparency on fees is quite poor. They show the real exchange rate below their money transfer widget but the ‘received amount’ in the widget does not use that rate. Remitly uses the real exchange rate plus approximately 2%.
The additional fees for sending to a country can be found clearly within the help center. However, it is not shown to the customer going through the money transfer process until after a few steps.
Remitly & TrustPilot - Remilty’s lack of transparency on fees can be quite confusing which is reflected in many poor reviews on TrustPilot. Many poor Remitly reviews are about transparency on fees and sudden account closures or funds not arriving at their destination.
Xoom
38
38
Where Xoom does well
Regulated - Xoom is regulated by the US federal government and various state regulatory bodies. It is licensed to provide its services in all its countries in its transfer network.
Trustpilot - Xoom gets an Excellent rating on Trustpilot. However, a number of complaints highlight lengthy turnaround times and failed transfers.
Xoom challenges
Fees transparency - Xoom applies a margin on existing exchange rates. This can be over 5% for some currencies.
Customer support - The company does not seem to respond to any of its customers' reviews on Trustpilot and the Apple App store. Many customers also complain about receiving poor customer service over the phone.
Xoom wins!
Remitly and Xoom both score very poorly with trust and transparency. Neither are transparent with their high exchange rate margins. Remitly’s very low TrustPilot rating has pushed Remitly below Xoom on the rating.
Winner
The Result
Winner
Winner
Remilty and Xoom are drawn using iCompareFX’s benchmark rating. Both companies are expensive options when sending money overseas. If a person is sending money to a foreign bank account, there are cheaper money transfer companies available. Even when sending money for cash pickup, there can be better options.
FAQs
Is Remitly better than Xoom?
No. Both Remitly and Xoom are lacking compared to the competition in the international money transfers market. High fees. Poor exchange rates and customer reviews that deserve attention.
