Money transfer UK to Ireland

nickc1976

Hi,

Hopefully this is the right place to post this. What is the best way to transfer money from my UK bank account to an account held in Ireland. I am going to be making a regular payment - £200 per month, and all methods available through the bank seem to include a charge of around £20.

Is there an easy way to do this for free?

Thanks

Nick

97trophy

Open a GBP and EUR account with Citibank UK. Citi offer free EUR payments.

or

Open an account with XE.com - a forex broker.

nickc1976

97trophy wrote: »

Open a GBP and EUR account with Citibank UK. Citi offer free EUR payments.

Would I need to open two accounts with Citibank? and would transfers between the GPC account and the EUR account be free?

DesG

97trophy wrote: »

. Citi offer free EUR payments.

Do they really do EUR payments free!

I didn't know that!

Cheers, Des.

Hazzanet

DesG wrote: »

Do they really do EUR payments free!

Yup: http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/sepa.htm?merchant=citi

cooki2222

get a bank of ireland, ulster bank or aib/first trust account im sure they would allow for this as they operate in the north and the south of ireland

97trophy

nickc1976 wrote: »

Would I need to open two accounts with Citibank? and would transfers between the GBP account and the EUR account be free?

Yes, you would need two different accounts. One GBP account and One EUR account. They are very easy to open.

There is no charge for the transaction itself but as with all brokers there is a mark-up over the spot fx price. I believe 2.5%. But you are not going to get the spot price anywhere.

nickc1976

I spoke to Citibank this morning, and they confirmed that I could open one of their current accounts, then using SEPA funds transfer, I can transfer money from my UK account to an Irish account in Euro's, without paying any fees.
They said I wouldn't have to open a Euro account to do this.

I applied for both a GBP and an Euro account with them today. Hopefully this will all go through OK and solve my problem.

I also found that my current bank - LloydsTSB also do a Euro account, but it costs £7.50 per month

bradc

All UK banks do a Euro account but they still charge to send funds in euro currency to another euro account overseas! CitiBank are the best as transfers between GBP and Euro accounts are free and transfers overseas are also generally free.

Regards,

DesG

Hazzanet wrote: »

Yup: http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/sepa.htm?merchant=citi

Thanks for that!

Do you happen to know if you can receive SEPA payments into the euro account for free?

If so I'm off to open up some citibank accounts, what with them being fully FPS's too.

Cheers, Des.

Stinkybell

May not be the best way to do it, but we used to write a cheque in Sterling and post it to a pal to pay into the Irish account. We used to do it every quarter to cover loan payments rather than every month to save on fees