Remessa Online Review: Transfer Fees, Safety, Usability, and Monito's Verdict

Having moved some R$31 billion across borders for more than 400 thousand customers to date, Remessa Online might not be the biggest transfer company, but it's undoubtedly trustworthy.

Is Remessa Online Safe?

A fully licensed financial services company authorized by the Central Bank of Brazil, Remessa Online is undoubtedly a credible and legitimate institution, and you can rest assured that your money would be safe in their hands.

However, Remessa Online appears to lag slightly behind when it comes to customer perception of their security, especially on Google Play Store. Many customers have complained about long waits and an inability to access their accounts. However, it's worth pointing out that Remessa Online frequently responds to customer concerns and takes negative feedback in this area seriously.

Remessa Online is very often the cheapest transfer service from Brazil on Monito’s search engine, although it's not very competitive on a global scale. The service charges a minimum exchange rate margin fee of 1.3% on all transfers abroad. While popular currencies such as the British pound, US dollar, and Euro have their margins at or around that amount; these fees can go as high as 3% or 4% for some currencies, such as the Japanese yen and the Chilean peso.

Aside from the exchange rate margin, other potential costs might include a fixed fee of several reals depending on the country to which you're sending, as well as another commission fee (referred to as a "Financial transaction tax") that tends to range anywhere between 0% and 1% of the transfer.

Despite these fees, Remessa Online remains among the cheapest providers on money transfers from Brazil. In fact, the service ranked as the cheapest provider of all on more than half (52%) of all searches on our comparison engine over the past year. What's more, the service was cheapest of all on nearly two in five (39%) of searches to the US and one in five (21%) of searches to Portugal.

How Transparent Is Remessa Online About Its Pricing?

While the exchange rate margin does indeed take up a large share of the fees you'll pay when sending money abroad with Remessa Online (something that usually implies a lack of transparency due to the fact that these fees are often hidden), the service does admittedly do a fair job of explaining the cost breakdown to customers long before any money is sent.

When visiting Remessa Online's homepage, you'll get a complete breakdown of the basic cost elements of your transfer, including the mid-market exchange rate (the "Câmbio comercial"), the exchange rate margin (the "Custo"), as well as a fixed fee (the "Tarifa bancária") and a commission fee (the "IOF" or "Imposto sobre operações financeiras") where they're applicable. This is all topped off with a final quote of the exchange rate at which you'll be charged, with all of the fees built-in (the "VET"), as well a figure showing exactly what the beneficiary can expect to receive in their local currency.

All in all, this provides customers with a fair overview of what they can expect to pay when sending money abroad, making Remessa Online a fairly transparent service.

Although Remessa Online doesn't yet have a long track record, customers have expressed positive feedback on the service so far.

Remessa Online has so far received positive reviews from its customers online. On Google Play Store, for example, Remessa Online scores 4.7 out of 5 stars from around 8,000 reviews. The service has done well on the App Store too, scoring 4.9 out of 5 stars out of around 6,000 reviews.