US citizen/ UK resident contracting with US company - more questions...

[WordIsBond]

Thanks for clarifying Transferwise’s policy - I have only used them for personal transaction and wasn’t even aware they offered any business services.

In my view definitely worth it. It's easy, fast, inexpensive, my contacts say these are legit people and that it is on a sound footing, so probably quite safe.

They give you a foreign bank account to pay into and my clients just pay into it directly. I don't remember everywhere they cover but it works fine for my US and Euro clients. Rates are very competitive.

Only drawback is I used to have a pretty good feel as to whether rates had just bounced and were going up or down in the next few days, and time my transfers to benefit. Now, I don't want to leave funds sitting in a TW account because they aren't protected. So I just go ahead and exchange the funds when they arrive and move them on to my normal bank account. But since I sometimes guessed wrong, that's not a big deal. I don't recommend leaving any significant balance in a TW account. Like I said, it should be safe, but 'should be' and guaranteed by HMG are not the same thing.