sending money back to the UK

Maxxi

Hi there,

I am currently working in France and am coming back to the UK at the end of the next month. I'm wondering what's the best and easiest way to send euros back to the UK without being shafted on exchange rates etc. I'm probably going to be needing to send back to my uk bank account around 2,300 euros. I wouldnt mind using Paypal but when it's all over how much money will I be left with in £'s ?

Any advice would be great

thanks

Maxxi

fawinds

I use http://www.xe.com/ for sending euros to the eurozone and they have no fees and very good exchange rates.

SG_Guy

Do not use PayPal. Their exchange rates are very poor indeed. There are lots of specialist foreign currency brokers out there if you do a quick search on the forums.

LeifGR

You should be able to send money in euros from your French account to your UK account for a max fee of around £10 -- this is an EU regulation. You will then "pay" for any margin that the receiving bank applies to the FX rate when converting your money to sterling, but there should be no additional flat fee levied at the receiving end.

In my experience this often ends up cheaper than the alternatives like www.moneybookers.com and www.xe.com. You could phone your UK bank and ask what today's rate would be and then get a quote from xe, then compare the two. Remember to compare the effective exchange rate, i.e. divide your total cost in EUR to your total proceeds in GBP, including all fees levied.

The type of transfer I am referring to is called a SEPA "Single Euro Payment Area" transfer.