By Harry Scherzer
If you’re in the final stages of your career and looking forward to retirement, you’ll have some important choices to make. Do you stay in your current home or downsize? And if you do downsize, should you look for a flat or townhouse or should you move to a retirement village before it’s too late? Should you stay in the same town or city you’ve built a life in or should you buy a house in that small seaside village you fell in love with a couple of years ago? Perhaps most importantly, however, how can you best ensure that your money’s doing everything it can for you?
The last of those questions is important for all retirees, but it’s especially critical if you hold the majority of your wealth offshore. Maybe that’s because, like so many South Africans, you’ve invested heavily offshore. Or maybe it’s because you’ve physically and financially emigrated in the past but are set on retiring in South Africa.
Either way, you’re probably going to regularly be moving reasonably large sums of money from an offshore account to a South African one. It can be frustrating and complex, especially if you choose the wrong international payments provider. If, on the other hand, you choose a partner that prioritises customer service and transparency, then you’re much more likely to have a smooth experience when bringing money across to South Africa.
Good customer service is critical
Anyone who’s ever transferred money internationally knows that even comparatively small transfers can come with a fair amount of paperwork and regulatory compliance measures. Both of those things are magnified when you’re dealing with the amounts that a retiree may need to transfer. As weak as the rand is, you still need a fair number of pounds, dollars, or euros to buy that dream beach house or even just to live off for a few months.
Now, you could try and take care of all that yourself. But if you try to do so through a bank or traditional payment provider, chances are you’ll get frustrated very quickly. You’ll inevitably spend hours on the phone being pushed from pillar to post by an institution that sees you as nothing more than a number. Chances are, you’re also going to have to go through this process multiple times.
If you’re still working, that’s not really where you want your focus to be, especially if you’re finishing up projects that you believe will define your working legacy. And if you’re retired, wouldn’t you rather be doing all the things you didn’t have time for when you were working than sitting on the phone with your bank?
That’s not the only reason not to use them when bringing retirement-related funds into South Africa either. Many banks are notoriously bad at disclosing exactly how much you’ll have to pay them every time you exchange foreign currency. That, in turn, means you can end up paying more on a transaction than you were expecting or even should have. Over time, those extra amounts can add up, cutting into your ability to go on a dream holiday or buy your grandchild an amazing 18th birthday present.
Find a provider with the right focus
So, if not your bank, then who should you turn to when it comes to meeting your currency exchange needs? Ideally, you should look for an international payment provider that places a premium on customer service and transparency.
When it comes to customer service, you want a provider that makes currency exchange as simple as possible. That means that the onboarding process should be predominantly automated, quick, and seamless. But it also means that you should be assigned a dedicated account manager who not only knows the ins and outs of your finances but also has in-depth knowledge of the currency exchange space.
But that provider should also demonstrate transparency in its pricing. After all, what business can honestly claim that it cares about its customers if it’s unable to show that it’s charging them a fair price for its offering?
Easing the stress of international payments
Given that your retirement is supposed to be more relaxing than your working life, the last thing you need is currency exchange difficulties. No matter why you need to bring money across to help fund that retirement, it should be simple, seamless, and stress-free. With the right international payment provider, it can be.
* Scherzer is the CEO of FutureForex.
PERSONAL FINANCE