If you are looking to send or receive funds through a money transfer but are not in your home country, be prepared for some road blocks when you do not have a bank account in the country you are in.

Don’t worry though, there are still systems that let you wire money to the other person through a location based service which requires recipients to present a secret code in order to collect the money.This system has been tightened since the attacks on September 11th as this was the easiest way for terrorists to wire money around the globe. Now, usually both the sender and recipient must present some form of I.D. to take advantage of this form.

Brazilian immigrants based in the U.S. consistently wire money an average of just once monthly. Experts estimate it averages out to 400 U.S. dollars a month.

The U.S. isn’t the only major nation transferring money Brazil. Brazil also receives remittance from Japan at an average of once a month. Japan however, averages the equivalent of 600 U.S. dollars a month, making it one of the leading contributing nations.

So how exactly does the process work? Some use a bank’s wire service, which requires both parties to have an account with the bank. This doesn’t always end well considering the sender may not be able to open an account because of their immigration status, or the receiver may not be in a state where they can open up a Brazilian account – a huge reason why people leave the country for countries like the U.S. or Japan.

People have also usedhave also turned to courier services or more traditional mailboxes. But not only do options like these take anywhere from days to weeks before the money arrives, there is also the question of how reliable the system really is. Oftentimes, money wired through these systems never even gets to the intended location.

Those needing to send money to Brazil may do so using one of the numerous offline services. Be cautious however, the exchange rate converts one U.S. dollar into two Brazilian Reais while also charging an additional 10% fee – give or take a few percentage points. After all is said and done you’ll have much less than if you were to just transfer the money within the United States.

Yet another option is to wire cash with a pre-paid ATM or debit card. The sender simply buys the card and sends it through FedEx, a well-known courier service.

The card only costs about and you are allowed to send up to $1000. You can also trust that the funds will arrive safely and your recipient will not be forced to wait around checking the mail every day or even have to drive to one of the location-based companies to go pick it up. The even greater perk of this method is that to add money the sender simply jumps on the phone or onto the web to transfer money onto the card in just minutes. It’s no wonder so many people are turning to this option – it is by far one of the fastest, most convenient ways to transfer. This way is much safer than traditional methods that have been around for years.