I’ve never been so strapped that I had to get an emergency wire, but as we all know travel and living abroad can be unpredictable so having a solid backup plan is advisable and not too hard. Fortunately for us there are many services that offer support for emergency cash while abroad taking some of the fret of life abroad. For North Americans, Ecuador is a convenient place to transfer money. The currency is in US dollars, so no conversion fees. And in major urban centers like Quito, Guyaquil, and Cuenca there are a palethora of banking facilities making for easy receiving of your cash. Money transfer can be expensive though with high transfer fees in some occasions, but with a bit of planning one can

The world is broken down into two kinds of people: those that plan and those that react. It can be quite pricey if one has to send money grams many times. Depending on the cash amount fees can range between 5-10% per transaction. Money gram services profit off the desperate’s need for quick liquid cash in situations for which you hadn’t planned: a theft, a fire, police extortion. And sometimes we have to react, we can’t plan for every emergency that comes up. Fortunately, these services exist and as long as we have friends and family back home who can cover us, we can count on getting out of our tight binds. The immediate availability of these sums reconciles with the sometimes high cost, but then one has figure that there is a certain inconvenience with having to line up at the money gram office in order to send and at the bank in order to receive. And believe me, the lines in Ecua banks can be long and slow.

But why not plan a little before hand and save time and money on transactions fee and make things a lot more convenient for you and your family back home. Set up an emergency account that you and a close friend or relative would have access to. Your contact would hold on to the card and in an emergency could send you the card via fed ex overnight. Set up the account for online banking and funds can be transferred in either by you from a primary account or by your contacts account and you will have almost instant access to funds(within 24 hours). The beauty of this is that it can be done online or over telephone banking; there are no long, inconvenient bank lines to stand in; and of course, it can be sent 24/7.

But I know, I know we don’t always plan that well. And so I found another interesting site on a google search for “how to send money to Ecuador,” which seems a little more up-to-date automation-wise than traditional moneygram sites. Atmcash.com offers a similar service to the best case scenario above. On Atmcash you would purchase an account with them and they would issue a debit card which would be shipped overnight via Fedex to you here in Ecuador(a separate charge, fees vary depending on delivery location). It’s a secure method of transferring; the card and pin number will be held safely until you arrive with your valid identification. You would then have a quasi-bank account with atmcash.com which can be charged with credit via telephone(toll free number) or via the internet, credited via a bank account or credit card. Utilizing this card at any atm with the Cirrus logo, you skip all the long lines and you can draw the money out as you need and not worry about carring large sums out of a bank after receiving your money gram.

There are pluses and minuses to each method of transfer be it bank transfer or credit card. Via bank transfer there is just a five dollar flat fee for any amount from $100 to $1000 dollars which is incredible since with any money gram order the percentage charged to the user is upped incrementally for every increased monetary level. The one drawback is that you must wait from 4-5days to receive the money in your account. Not a big deal if you are planning regular intervals of payments in, but useless if you are in an emergency situation. So Atmcash.com also allows transfers to be made via credit card which is immediately available, though the fees are higher starting at $8 for $100 and moving incrementally toward $35 for $1000.

So in the world of sendingmoney abroad to Ecuador,with a little forethought, can be easy and convenient in this automated age. Weigh the cost between the methods. And as Douglas Adams said in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy “Don’t panic!” there are many methods to get that money into your hands and get you out of a bind.

Related posts:

• Emergency on the go, where to go?
• Dr. Greenback, or How I learned to stop worrying and love the Yankee dollar
• Staying in Ecuador? Insurance for Expats
• Nuts and Bolts–Visa Requirements for Retirement in Ecuador

Tags: Banking, Transfering Money