FX Brokers Feedback

Paul_Mullins_2

I send between £500 and >£5000 to Bank accounts in Slovakia, Poland and Czech Republic on properties there, either planned or at relatively short notice.
It is an effort to set up, which inhibits changing, but is smooth once used to process. No fee but they make money on exchange rate, I have recently calculated about 4.6% of amount sent is charged as fee. It is as stated very difficult to clarify the comparison of costs of these various companies.
Questions.
Any other way better?
I may be moving abroad to Canada - which bank should I use to have paired with one in UK to send large sums back over the next few years and minimise cost of transfers. I am with Nat West and First Direct in UK, can open another account in UK if beneficial.

Regards,

Paul.

missile

I am looking to exchange 200,000 euros from spain.

My bank in spain will charge 0.5% to convert to £ @ 1.12 i.e. £169642.84. If I made the transfer in euros my bank in spain there would be no charge.

LTSB tell me they would charge me £7.00 @ 1.1136 i.e. £176,049

RBOS tell me they would charge me £8.00 @ 1.1064 i.e. £180,758.44

Seems to good and I asked both banks what they would charge to convert. Both said they THOUGHT that there would be no other charges.

XE.com quote @ 1.1259 i.e. £177,635.66

The exchange rates are at the time I called and subject to change.

The quote from RBS seems too good to be true and I would appreciate any advice:T

missile

ashleyingle wrote: »

This is a prime example why you should avoid using a bank. do you have accounts with all banks mentioned?

LSTB and RBS highly likely are quoting you the rate you would buy GBP-EUR. The mid market rate, looking at my financial charts has been 1.1139-1.122 today between 8-3pm BST. the selling rate is always higher than mid-market rate.

Your spanish bank will do the luxury of transferring your funds for 0.5% - £1,000 for a banker to enter a few buttons on their screen.

Banks also usually send funds shared unless you specifically express 'accept all fees' to eliminated any intermediary bank fee taken. Also banks usually will get this trade done and not tell you the exact rate beforehand until it is too late. I have found on a number of occasions where spanish expats send their funds back to UK to move back and use the banks directly, find a big charge taken and then when they phone the spanish bank, conveniently nobody speaks a word of English..

Do you have an account with XE.com? or was this using their commonly seen currency convertors they are only indicative rates.

For 200,000 EUR-GBP, I strongly suggest getting some guidance on the best time to book your currency, unless you have time to be constantly checking on the markets and have a grasp on markets.

I do have accounts with Banks mentioned and XE.com.

I was under the impression that banks took a huge cut. However on the information I have been given, it appears that this is no longer the case?

Here is the link to RBS site > http://www.rbs.co.uk/personal/travel...#tabs=section2

Frankie706

Can anyone help. I need to transfer a large amout of Australian Dollars to the UK. I read MSE 5 step guide, following Step 4 recommended for large amounts. I went to Travel Money Maximier (which Step 4 tells you to use as benchmark with the aim of beating that rate). Travel Money Maximiser gave me a rate of £1 = $1.33AUD, but didnt tell me who the provider of that rate was.

I dont believe this rate. I have registered with MoneyCorp, HIFX and OZ Forex and none can get anywhere near this rate. I have been travelling to Australia regularly for 7 years and have seen rates of £1 =$3AUD, down to todays rate of £1 = $1.50 to $1.45. A far cry from £1 = $1.33 AUD especially when you want to move hundreds of thousands AUD.

Has anybody else got bizzare rates from Travel Money Maximiser and then not even been given the name of the provider ,,,, or am I doing something wrong. Any help much appreciated.

Mikhail

Here is some comparison:

BigDaddyG

Very Positive feedback for HiFX when I recently transferred 50.000 Euros.

I registered with both HiFX and Moneycorp as this was neccessary to compare any quotes.

In the end although the difference was extremely marginal I chose HiFX due to their realtime Marketwatch of the internet bank exchange and their continuously updated personalised offer based on it. MoneyCorp operate a phone service quote system which I didn't really like.

I agreed my rate on the Friday at 18:00 and it was in my UK account by 16:00 on the Tuesday.

Not only that the phone staff when I called at the beginning of the decision making were knowledgable and very friendly.

Happy Customer :j

taavet

Has anyone tried to use TransferWise?

TransferWise offers mid-market rate for a flat fee of 1 GBP. Such a good deal is possible because the site matches the people who use it to each other - people needing euros change with the people needing pounds and vice-versa.

Would love to get any feedback anyone has - I'm one of the founders of the site. Happy to tell you more in email or pm.

Taavet

forex_newbie

Hi All -

I have recently moved back to England from Australia, and need to transfer some money (c. $7000) from my Oz bank account to my England bank account. I had a look through the MSE advice, and have contacted HiFX and easyFX as potential companies to use.

HiFX seems to have a pretty good reputation, which is obviously important (I just want as much of my cash to appear in my UK account as possible!), but they want to charge a $10 admin fee as the amount is below $10,000AUS. easyFX does't appear to charge any kind of admin fees.

To be frank, I'm *really* not a fan of admin fees, particularly when the company will already be making money on the transaction in other ways. I understand these companies are in the business of making money, and that's fine. However, when I spoke to the person from HiFX, I asked many questions about how they make money out of such transactions and he didn't mention the fee until at the very end of the conversation, when I explicitly asked. According to the person I spoke to at easyFX, they don't charge any sort of admin fees.

Has anyone had dealings with easyFX? From what I can gather, they're part of VFX Financial and are registered with the FSA. I'd be grateful for any feedback.

Thank you!

missile

I have never used HiFX or easyFX. I would suggest you should not get hung up over fees. Some charge a fee whilst others e.g. XE.com hide it with a poorer rate for small amounts.

What you need to be comparing is "how many £ will I receive for my $7000?"

skid112

on the process of a house purchase in Spain, I can thoroughly recommend FC Exchange, they are very helpful and very competitive
on exchange rates