Getting money from Spain to the UK

cathmerrick

My Money
Wonder if anyone could give me some advice I need to get some money from Spain to the UK after selling my home and returning. I want to know how to get the cash back to the UK the quickest, safest and cheapest way to me.

Everyone seems to want a slice of the money and I have paid so much out already in tax and fees etc it is quickly dwindling and I seem to be losing my capital that I have to buy a home back in the UK/:question:

missile

If you bank with same bank e.g. Barclays in UK and Barclays.es they may give you a good deal.
You could use one of the many exchange companies like http://hifx.com/

scotsbob

The Santander bank may be worth investigating.

They are expanding in the UK and their cards don't charge for withdrawals abroad.
Possibly opening an account in Spain and then withdrawing here may be advantageous. However it's just a thought but may be worth investigating.

markbodega

Cathmerrick

Spanish banks generally charge a percentage of transactional value, rather than a flat TT fee for moving money. This can make them better value on smaller transactions than UK banks, but way more expensive on large sums such as proceeds of the sale of a property.

These transfer fees can be around 0.5% (sometimes even more) regardless of whether you're transferring the money to a bank in the UK or a currency specialist.

One point to note: quite often if the bank thinks you're moving back to the UK for good and therefore will be closing the account after the transfer they may well look to make more money from the transaction. If however they think they'll be more transfers to follow they may well look to keep your custom. Accept the fact you will need to pay something, but try to get the fee down to 0.1% - 0.2%.

The bank will also look to make money on the exchange rate offered if you decide to use them and more often than not will only give you the tourist rate on your transfers.

Another option you might want to consider is as follows. If you have a cheque book on your Spanish account you could bank the cheque with a UK currency specialist or UK bank. It will take around 6 weeks to clear, but you should avoid all charges (check the Spanish bank doesn’t charge for cheque clearly) and the money you save will be much more than any interest lost. You will get the exchange rate on the day the money clears and again, a currency specialist will normally give a better rate than the bank.

At the very least I'd therefore suggest you shop around. Call your bank in Spain and the UK and compare the exchange rates offered with those of a currency specialist. Make sure you ask all of them about bank charges as these can mount up. Also when doing the rate comparison make sure you do them one after the other as exchange rates can move quickly. As a general rule of thumb using a currency company will save you around 4% on the amount transferred so it's well worth the additional phone calls. 4% doesn't sound a lot but on €50,000 it's around €2,000 which will compensate for any changes from you Spanish bank!


When choosing a currency specialist, make sure they're authorised and regulated by the FSA for additional peace of mind. You can do this by going to the FSA's website. Also check that the company operates segregated client accounts. Personally if it were me making the transfer, I'd choose one of the larger co's for additional security.

Hope this helps.

Best regards

Mark Bodega

Inactive

scotsbob wrote: »

The Santander bank may be worth investigating.

They are expanding in the UK and their cards don't charge for withdrawals abroad.
Possibly opening an account in Spain and then withdrawing here may be advantageous. However it's just a thought but may be worth investigating.

Avoid, they are even worse in Spain than they are in the UK.

I speak from experience.

Olipro

cathmerrick wrote: »

My Money
Wonder if anyone could give me some advice I need to get some money from Spain to the UK after selling my home and returning. I want to know how to get the cash back to the UK the quickest, safest and cheapest way to me.

Everyone seems to want a slice of the money and I have paid so much out already in tax and fees etc it is quickly dwindling and I seem to be losing my capital that I have to buy a home back in the UK/:question:

you could do the job using Moneybookers - you'd need to setup a spanish and british account with them and get it verified etc, but once you did that you should find it pretty good as the cap the fee at something like 85p and if you're fully verified you can transfer well over 5 figures in one go.

The only thing you *may* need to watch out for is their exchange rate, I can't remember whether or not you get the spot rate or not so I suggest you pump 5 euros through, see how much you get in GBP and compare to XE.com

However, you should really check with your Spanish bank to see how much they will charge you to make a SEPA payment, if this is a %age of the transaction I would be quite surprised and assuming it isn't you merely need to send Euros to your UK bank (I heartily recommend Nationwide as they won't charge you for an incoming SEPA and you'll get a wholesale exchange rate)

System

Olipro wrote: »

you should really check with your Spanish bank to see how much they will charge you to make a SEPA payment, if this is a %age of the transaction I would be quite surprised and assuming it isn't you merely need to send Euros to your UK bank (I heartily recommend Nationwide as they won't charge you for an incoming SEPA and you'll get a wholesale exchange rate)

Nationwide current accounts cannot receive SEPA Credit Transfers. They can only receive legacy SWIFT transfers. The sender has to quote an intermediary HSBC BIC as well as the Nationwide BIC. Other British banks (eg HSBC itself) do accept SEPA Credit Transfers without charge.
Banks in mainland Europe can and do charge what they like for legacy SWIFT transfers. For a SEPA Credit Transfer, a Spanish bank has to charge the same for sending x000 euro from Madrid to London as it would to send x000 euro from Madrid to Toledo - in practice, little or nothing.

funkycockatoo

Santander in Spain quoted me 400 Euros to handle two cheques for the sale of our property. Santander in UK are quoting £20. They do not charge commission on the change from euros to Sterling but have said that "the other bank" they would use for the exchange would but were unable to give me any idea of what that might be. I like you would be grateful for some sound and practical guidance

fawinds

funkycockatoo wrote: »

Santander in Spain quoted me 400 Euros to handle two cheques for the sale of our property. Santander in UK are quoting £20. They do not charge commission on the change from euros to Sterling but have said that "the other bank" they would use for the exchange would but were unable to give me any idea of what that might be. I like you would be grateful for some sound and practical guidance

I would open an euro account with Citibank in london, cash the cheque there and then move it to sterling. Depending on the amount they could charge 0.5% exchange rate commission.

I doubt Santander UK will not charge an exchange rate commission on top of the £20 they have quoted.

benjus

The problem with all this talk of "commission" is that it's an almost meaningless word. The Post Office won't charge you "commission", but you'll get a terrible exchange rate. They might as well say "we don't charge you to breathe our air".

The only relevant question (as far as costs are concerned) is "for my xxxxxx Euros, how many Pounds Sterling will I end up with in my UK account?". Only then can you fairly compare different providers.

According to SendMoneyHome.org, (http://www.sendmoneyhome.org/Content/money-transfer-from-Spain-UK-above-3000-amount-100000) the cheapest for €100k would be The FX Firm. If the price is correct it seems very cheap - taking a cut of about 0.3%.

Obviously you need to be very careful about who you trust with this amount of money...

grantd

I definitely agree with staying away from Santander, but using another bank which also operates in England is probably a logical shout. However, as far as I'm away, these transfer fees are inevitable and you may just have to bite the bullet. Or cash it all out and carry it over in person!!!