fastest way to move USD to EUR
You're asking three different things: What is the fastest way, what is the cheapest way and what is the easiest way.  You will not find one method that is all three at once. The fastest way is a wire transfer.  The cheapest way that I've encountered is a foreign exchange service like XE.  The easiest way is probably Paypal since the money is already in Paypal.
How should we disregard leverage when it's the leverage that creates the 'wipe-out' potential? If you simply convert 100K EUR to USDollars, you dollars might then fluctuate a few thousand, maybe even 10K over a year, but the guy that only put up 1000 EUR to do this has a disproportionally higher risk. Now, is there any clever way to combine FOREX transactions so that you receive the US interest on $100K instead of the $2K you deposited as margin?  Yes, absolutely. But think about it -- why would the interest rates be different? Imagine you're making two loans, one for 10,000 USD and one for 10,000 CHF, and you're going to charge a different interest rate on the two loans. Why would you do that? There is really only one reason -- you would charge more interest for the currency that you think is less likely to hold its value such that the expected value of the money you are repaid is the same. In other words, currencies pay a higher interest when their value is expected to go down and currencies pay a lower interest when their value is expected to go up. So yes, you could do this. But the profits you make in interest would have to equal the expected loss you would take in the devaluation of the currency. People will only offer you these interest rates if they think the loss will exceed the profit. Unless you know better than them, you will take a loss. In addition to TransferWise that @miernik answered with and that I successfully used, I found CurrencyFair which looks to be along similar lines and also supports US$. The best way is to approach your bank and fill out a transfer form to send USD to your US account (if you are visiting India). They will require quite a number of proof (AADHAR, PAN, Passport) copies.  Otherwise speak to your bank about how to do a wire transfer from your India A/C to US; after de-moitization regulations have tightened, the best course of action would be to speak to your bank directly. A lot depends on how much is in the account, and whether you expect to be returning (or having any sort of financial dealings) in Europe in the future. My own experience (about 10 years out of date, and with Switzerland) is that the easiest way to transfer reasonable amounts (a few thousand dollars) was simply to get it in $100 bills from the European bank.  I also kept the account open for a number of years while living in the US (doing contracting that was paid into the European bank), and could withdraw money from American ATMs. I eventually had to close the account due to issues between the bank and the IRS.  I think it was only that particular bank (UBS) that was the problem, though. The website http://currencyfair.com/ provides a service which gives you both a decent exchange rate (about 1% off from mid-market rate) and a moderately low fee for the transfer: 4 USD for outgoing ACH in the US, 10 USD for same-day US wire. For the reverse (sending money from the US to EU) the fees are: 3 EUR for an ACH, 8 EUR for a same-day EUR wire. It has been online for quite a while, so I assume its legit, but I'd do a transfer for a smaller sum first, to see if there are any problems, and then a second transfer for the whole sum. "is there anything I can do now to protect this currency advantage from future volatility? Generally not much. There are Fx hedges available, however these are for specialist like FI's and Large Corporates, traders. I've considered simply moving my funds to an Australian bank to ""lock-in"" the current rate, but I worry that this will put me at risk of a substantial loss (due to exchange rates, transfer fees, etc) when I move my funds back into the US in 6 months. If you know for sure you are going to spend 6 months in Australia. It would be wise to money certain amount of money that you need. So this way, there is no need to move back funds from Australia to US. Again whether this will be beneficial or not is speculative and to an extent can't be predicted." You can use a service like Transferwise to send money. The trick is that they allow sending money to yourself, from a GBP account to an EUR account, effectively making it an exchange shop. Their rates are usually very good, with the transfers happening on the same day most of the time. Remember that converting from EU to USD and the other way around always costs you money, at least 0.5% per conversion. Additionally, savings accounts in EU and USA have different yields, you may want to compare which country offers you the best yields and move your money to the highest yielding account. Rates are arrived at by the cumulative buying and selling on the foreign exchange market, much the same way that stock prices are arrived at.  If there are more people wanting to buy dollars with euros, EUR/USD goes down.  If more people want to buy euros with dollars, then EUR/USD goes up. The initial rate was about $1.18 per euro when it began trading on January 1st, 1999.  It replaced the European Currency Unit at that time, which was a weighted basket of currencies of (more or less) the participating countries. You're correct about the printing press in the US and other countries.  The exchange rates do reflect in part how much of a relative workout those printing presses get. Then, is it possible to deposit rubles at the same ATM to get USD in my account at the same rate? No this is not possible. Generally deposits into accounts outside country and not offered. There is a way I discovered of finding the current exchange rate before committing to buy, go to send payments, put in your own second email, pay 1gbp as the amount and it will give you the exchange rate and fees in your own currency, in my case euro, before you have to click on send payment HSBC exchange spread between HKD and USD was 483 bps (1 bps is 0.0001) on their 24 hours exchange network a few weeks ago when I checked. It is very high for a pair of linked currencies which has very little fluctuation. One should expect less than 5 bps or even 1 bps. I did my currency conversion at a US brokerage which can take HKD currency and then I was able to pick the time/rate and amount I like to make the conversion. Basically, the currency pair runs within a tight band and you just need to buy USD with HKD at the time when it is near the edge of the band to your advantage. There is usually no fee on currency conversion. They make money through the spread. HSBC premier allows you to wire free among countries. I forget whether they offer tighter spread or not.  Rob was right on about the cost of transferring money overseas. The majority of the cost is in the conversion, not the wiring. I'm sorry I guess what i meant to say was, what's the downside here? Why isn't everyone doing this, what am i missing? Someone clarified that i'm completely exposed to FX risk if I bring it back.   What if I am IN australia, how would I do this, short USD's? Cheaper and faster are usually mutually exclusive. If you want faster, nothing is faster than cash.  I would recommend using an ATM to withdraw cash from your USD account as Florints and then use as appropriate. If you want cheaper, then the cheapest currency conversion commonly available is foreign exchange / transfer services like OFX / XE Trade / Transferwise.  Turn around time on these can be as little as a business day or two but more commonly takes a few business days, but they typically offer the best currency exchange rates at the lowest cost.  If you must make regular payments to 3rd parties, you can set these services up to send the converted currency to a 3rd party rather than back to your own account.