I knew their fees were a little on the high side for US stuff, but my god, the FX rate itself is fucking horrible.

Right now the mid-market rate per Wise is 1.501.

At the same time, SW’s FX rate is 1.470.

So the total cost of USD -> AUD FX is really not actually just the 0.60% from FX fees, but more like ~2% due to the terrible FX rate (plus maybe the 0.6% on top of that if the listed FX rate isn’t counting that).

There’s a hefty $110 AUD fee for transfering non-AU securities out of SW, but given their atrocious FX rate it might actually be cheaper to eat that fee (buying something stable like a cash/bonds ETF so that it can be sold somewhere else) than be subject to their conversion rate.

I am actually shocked at how bad this is!?