Last year, Sainsbury’s bank moved into the money transfer space, announcing a partnership with MoneyCorp that will allow their customers to transfer up to £100,000 overseas, either online or over the telephone.

In the process of setting up the partnership, Sainsbury’s uncovered some interesting facts about why Brits might want to make international payments.

In the last two years, Sainsbury’s and MoneyCorp’s research revealed that nearly 8 million adults in the UK had transferred money overseas, with the average transfer size being £5,236. This works out at around 15% of the population of the UK.

The biggest reason given for transferring sums overseas was revealed as remittance, i.e. sending money to friends or family members living overseas. There are approximately 1.2 million people born in the UK who are now living overseas, who together account for 43% of money sent abroad form the UK since 2015, the research revealed.

The next biggest reason for sending a transfer of money abroad was to pay for a group holiday, which accounted for 17% of all transactions, followed by money required for studying abroad (10%), business transactions (9%), overseas weddings (6%), and stag and hen dos abroad, also 6%.

Spain was revealed to be the most popular destination for overseas money transfers, accounting for 16% of all transactions, followed by France, and the USA (both 14%), Australia (7%), and Italy and Germany, (both 6%).

These results certainly correlate with our own view here at The Money Cloud; we have previously outlined the Top 10 Reason Why People Send Money Abroad, and besides the above we also found that paying for luxury trips abroad, making overseas investments or divestments, paying bills abroad and paying for completion of building works featured prominently as reasons for making international money transfers.

As part of their tie-up with MoneyCorp, Sainsbury’s are offering special deals for Nectar card holders, with fee-free transactions, and preferential rates offered, as well as the ability to “lock in” current exchange rates for future transactions.

The public are increasingly becoming aware that sending money abroad using their banks, whilst a convenient option, hardly represents a good deal. Banks tend to levy high fees and use uncompetitive exchange rates, and the vanguard of disruptive transfer agencies, from TransferWise to Revolut, or in the case of larger transaction amounts, money transfer brokers like MoneyCorp, Tor FX, Effective FX or Fair FX, consistently offer a better deal.

In fact, the savings that someone sending money abroad using one of these services as opposed to their bank can be as large as 85% of the total transaction cost.

Sainsbury’s aren’t the only supermarket chain offering money transfer services. Last year, Asda also jumped on the bandwagon.

Above all, this represents good news for the customer, who can save significant sums by shopping around for the best available deal, using a comparison platform like The Money Cloud, for example.

So, whether you live abroad, are buying property overseas, planning a dream wedding in Tuscany, or a knees-up in Barcelona, avoiding unnecessary fees on your overseas transfers should free up funds and make that overseas experience all the sweeter.