Rate Alerts: What Are They, and Why Should You Set One?

Much like life, money transfer is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get. You could make a transfer between two currencies at one exchange rate today, and then try to initiate a transfer between the same currency pair tomorrow (or even later today) and find that the exchange rate is completely different.

Depending on what you’re planning on transferring, the market shifts may not have much of an impact on you. If you’re just making a small, one-off transfer between a pair of fairly stable currencies, you might not be too impacted by market motion. But if you’re making regular transfers, transferring a large amount, or transferring between currencies that are prone to a lot of shifts, then you’re probably paying attention to the rates.

How can you ensure that you’ll get the best rate for your upcoming transfer? Let us introduce you to the Rate Alert.

What are Rate Alerts?

It’s just what it sounds like—a way of alerting yourself when the market’s in your favor and you can transfer between two of your chosen currencies at your ideal rate.

By setting up a Rate Alert, you can set desired rates for your currency pairs. Once your pair hits its desired rate, we’ll let you know by email. From there, it’s up to you: if you want to make a transfer, that’s the ideal time. If you don’t have any need to transfer at the moment and don’t want to transfer for the future, just sit tight—as long as you keep your Rate Alert set, there’ll be more to come.

Why should I set up a Rate Alert?

Do you want to come back to our website and check our currency converter multiple times a day, for who-knows-how-long?

Didn’t think so.

When you set up a Rate Alert, you won’t have to monitor the markets—we’ll do it for you. You can ensure that you’ll know when it’s a good time to make a transfer, without needing to keep one eye on the constantly fluctuating rates.

What’s the difference between Rate Alerts and market orders?

It’s true: Rate Alerts and market orders are both ways you can set a target rate and ensure that you’ll be able to make your future transfers at the best possible rate.

Where they differ is who takes action.

• Rate Alerts are just alerts. They’ll let you know that the rates are good, but the onus to initiate the transfer is all on you. You can make the transfer if you want, but there’s nothing preventing you from hanging back and waiting to make the transfer another time.

• When you make a market order, you are ordering the transfer. Nothing will happen until the targeted rate is live, but once it’s live, your transfer will initiate.

If you know you need to make a transfer for a future purchase, a market order is a great method to ensure that everything’s all set up and you won’t have to worry about remembering to check the rates and make the transfer when the time’s right. If you’re not planning for a specific transfer but you want to keep an eye on the rates for potential future transfers, Rate Alerts will be your go-to.

How do I set up a Rate Alert?

Ready to set up your Rate Alerts? You can do it now, in just a few minutes. Log in to your account or open the Xe app and select “Rate Alerts” to get yours set up.

Still haven’t registered? Here’s everything you need to know about opening your account and getting started on the transfer process.