Cashing Euro cheque

Rach39 · 2 September 2009 at 9:39AM

Hi, can anyone advise? We have been (very kindly) sent a cheque by a realative who lives in the Republic. It is a euro cheque made payable to me and my husband. Both he and I have individual current accounts plus we have a joint account which we use to pay mortgage etc. We are going to Spain in 10 days and ideally would like to cash the cheque into euros - so as to not incurr loss in exchange rate to sterling then again back to euro. It's a crossed cheque - is there anyway to do this? Thanks all!!

Jaime-V · 2 September 2009 at 9:49AM

We have had a few euro cheques in the past and the only way we found was to lodge them into my account and H signed the back of the cheque so I could lodge it into my single account. It took a few weeks to clear though and the bank exchanged to stg into my account. Im not sure about how you could keep it in euros.

Can you call your bank to check? What about those cheque cashing places?

seatzie · 2 September 2009 at 10:37AM

if its crossed you'll need to lodge it into an account, no way round it unless you can get them to cross it out and initial it but given that you only have 10 days I doubt thats a possibility

NAR · 2 September 2009 at 1:00PM

What about asking relative to send cash (explain holiday reason) and tell them you will rip up cheque?

Rach39 · 2 September 2009 at 2:03PM

Thanks for all the advice guys, in the end have lodged into our joint Halifax account where it will get converted into sterling and will just leave there to pay bills and will just get our euros changed as usual. apparently it will take about 28 days to clear as has to go to Halifax head office to be processed!! Also tried AIB (as it is an AIB cheque) but they couldn't help me as have no account with them and confirmed they would still have to convert to sterling then back to euro with us losing out each time! Rang The Money Shop but they said would cash euro cheque but only to sterling (with conversion rate and big fee) then if I wanted euro would charge me again to change back!! didn't want to go back to the relative as this was a most unexpected gift out of the blue and didn't want to cause them hassle (also dodgy to send £1000 in cash I would have thought) Thanks for all the advice, at least it's kind of sorted!!

naijapower · 2 September 2009 at 2:12PM

Maybe things have changed. As of 2 yrs ago, most banks would cash/clear foreign chq up to the converted value of 2500GBP within 5-7 working days. Anything above this would take up to a month a sit has to be sent to the originating bank etc.

sanna_2 · 17 September 2009 at 6:20PM

Slightly different problem: I have been given cash (Euros) and thought I could open a Euro account where I could put them, hopefully get a bit of interest and take Euros out for travel etc without having to exchange. HSBC say they have a Euro account but you have to go to the branch to open it (makes sense if you have cash anyway). Went to Branch only to be told I had to not only open the savings account, but also a sort of current account which has a monthly fee. When I asked what the interest would be, the advisor said they did not know and it might change anyway by the time the account was opened (7 days). I said to tell me anyway as it would give me an indication and was told that interest was only payable on balances over 50,000 or some such. This seems totally barmy as the savings account was no withdrawals fixed for 12 months! So I went home and googled but could not find any bank offering a Euro account (other than offshore). Rang my friend in Switzerland and guess what: the Swiss post office has a lovely Euro account although they are not even in the EC. Does not pay much interest, but then no Swiss bank accounts do at the moment. She said the Euro account paid more than her other accounts and could be opened with a very small balance. Any advice out there????

oliveoilbenefits · 28 November 2009 at 3:27PM

I do not recommend cheques anymore honestly.

However, to avoid charges, open a Citibank Euro savings account - deposit the cheque then transfer the money electronically/online to your Citibank Sterling account

Hope this helps

facingthefuture · 3 December 2009 at 12:15AM

my dad was given a euro cheque rently and the cheapest way we found was for him to endorse it pay it into my euro account (based in donegal) and I gave him the cash when it cleared 5 days) beware but - if you put it into a euro account that is based in the north (like my sister did with the hsbc) it can take 6 WEEKS to clear (she is LIVID)

Cashing Euro cheque

Comments

Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply

🚀 Getting Started

Categories

Is this how you want to be seen?

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free