Pros & Cons
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- Sends money to 66 countries.
- Easy to use.
- Recipient doesn't need account or the app.
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- Minimum payment of $10.
- Slightly less generous exchange rate than some competitors.
Xoom is yet another financial service from mobile payments behemoth PayPal, which also owns Venmo. Xoom's main purpose is to make sending money abroad easy. Like Square Cash and Venmo, it's for person-to-person payments, as well as reloading foreign phones and paying overseas utility bills. It's not an in-store or online payment option like Android Pay, Samsung Pay, and Apple Pay. Unlike most of the big money-sending apps, which only work if both parties are in the US, Xoom works in 66 countries. Needless to say, Xoom gives Western Union a run for its money.
Getting Started With Xoom
Xoom works on Android 4.4 and later and iOS 9.0 or later. I installed it on a Samsung Galaxy S6 and on an iPhone X. On Android, it requires access to the camera and your Wi-Fi connection information, and on iOS it asks to send push notifications. Signing up requires a name, phone number, email, and password. Note that you don't need a mobile number, though it's preferred. If you have a PayPal account, you can simply sign up with that and use it as your money source.
The first thing you do when you want to send money abroad, logically, is to choose a country. 66 countries are available, with most of Central Asia, Latin America and Europe covered. East Asian recipient countries include China, Hong Kong, Japan, Nepal, Philippines, and Singapore. Africa only gets three countries: Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa.
For comparison, most person-to-person payment apps are US-only. Skype lets you send money (using PayPal services) to 30 different countries outside the US, but it's missing many important ones, including all of Latin America and Asia. PayPal (Free at Apple.com) itself works in over 200 countries, with options like Burkina Faso and Comoros, but it only supports 25 actual currencies.
Keep in mind that with PayPal, both parties must have PayPal accounts. One of the beauties of Xoom is that the recipient doesn't need a Xoom account or even a smartphone or bank account: Xoom lets them pick up cash at a store or bank by showing a Xoom tracking number and an ID. The recipient does, however, need a telephone number so Xoom can contact them about the transaction.
Using Xoom to Pay Others
The minimum amount of lucre you can send is $10 USD, though, for some countries, that increases to $25, and for the Philippines, it's $50. Maximum payments, at $10,000, are quite a bit higher than for Venmo (Free at Apple.com) and other similar services, which top out at $3,000. Unlike PayPal, Xoom is meant for person-to-person remittances, and not as a payment method for merchants and services; if you try to pay a business, the transaction may be voided.
Exchange rates and fees for every country Xoom supports are available via Xoom's online fee calculator. The rates are pretty good, compared to what I've seen at airport money exchange desks, but not as good as those of some competitors like Remitly and MoneyGram. When I sent 71 Quetzals to Guatemala, there was a fee of $4.99, whether sending to a bank account or for cash pickup, and the fee was the same whether I was paying with a bank account, credit card, or debit card.
That's the same fee charged by Remitly and MoneyGram, though those gave me a slightly better exchange rate, as did Ria. Remitly has generous introductory exchange rates and offers an extra cost Express service, but it supports far fewer countries (only 10). Ria can send money to some countries not covered by Xoom, including several African and Easter European nations. Western Union supports over 200 countries and territories and only charged a 99 cent fee for my test remittance.
You can set up the whole transaction before entering your own details and payment method. I found it a little strange that I couldn't switch to PayPal as a source after creating an account. I could only do so at the start of the process.
For cash pickup, my money was available within a range of 5 minutes to an hour, depending on the pickup location I chose. After choosing the location, you enter the recipient's info exactly as it appears on their ID. The service can send mobile text updates to both sender and receiver, in the local language, about the transaction. The messages are local, so there are no international texting charges. In less than a minute after I sent money to Guatemala, Xoom sent me a text that it was now available there.
I did run into a problem with my test remittance, however: I left out one of the middle names of my recipient, so the bank wouldn't give him the money. Understandable. What's less understandable is that there's no way to correct the contact's name on the website or in the app; I had to call the toll-free number and laboriously spell out Nehemias using the NATO phonetic alphabet (November Echo Hotel Echo Mike India Alpha Sierra) like an Air Force pilot would.
As with Venmo and Google Wallet (but not Apple Pay or Android Pay), you can send money from the Xoom website as well as from the mobile device. The site is every bit as functional as the app. In fact, you don't even need to install the app, something Apple Pay requires. With Xoom, you can do everything via the website.
Reload Phones, Pay Bills, Request Money
If you want to talk with your far-flung family member or friend, Xoom lets you reload their mobile phone with minutes. Simply enter the phone number and the service finds its carrier, if it's supported. It found my test Guatemala number, and I could add as little as 50 Quetzals, or less than $10.
You can also pay electric, landline, cable and internet bills as well as phone bills. Square Cash (Free at Apple.com) , Ria and Remitly are only about sending money, but MoneyGram can also pay foreign bills and phones. You can't pay bills in all the 66 countries you can send money to; the feature works in just 11 of them: Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Those living outside the US and in any of the 66 countries Xoom supports can use the app or website to request funds from contacts. They can request money or to have their mobile phone minutes reloaded or bills paid as discussed above. They can also specify where they want to pick up the cash.
A Solid Payment Service for the International Set
Xoom is a convenient way to send funds to far-flung friends and relatives—something that you can't do with popular payment apps like Venmo, Square Cash, or even Apple Pay or Google Wallet. It's easy to use and adds extras like recharging mobile minutes and paying utility bills in faraway lands. The ability to use PayPal as a source of funds is also a plus. One nitpick is that the app doesn't let you edit a contact's name if you get it wrong, and fees and exchange rates are no better than you find at competitors like Remitly and MoneyGram. For US person-to-person payments, our Editors' Choice is Venmo, thanks to its widespread adoption, social components, and extra features.