Cheapest way to transfer euros to pounds?

Dense_Dennis

A Dutch friend of mine has sold his house in Holland and now wants to buy a house in England however the cost of transferring the money from the sale of his house in euros to English pounds is extortionate! Does anyone know the best and cheapest way to go about this?

Thrugelmir

Pay for the house in Euro's rather than sterling?

JamesU

Dense_Dennis wrote: »

A Dutch friend of mine has sold his house in Holland and now wants to buy a house in England however the cost of transferring the money from the sale of his house in euros to English pounds is extortionate! Does anyone know the best and cheapest way to go about this?

What overall cost of exchange is considered extortionate? 1%, 2%, 5%, 10%....? Possible options if this is clarified.

Edit: just realise you are newish here, welcome to MSE. You may also find you get a better response to the question if the thread is posted in the savings and investments section or budgeting and bank accounts.....

JamesU

JasonLVC

Friend has funds (in Euros) in their local Euro bank account.

Set up an online account (free) with a currency exchange service such as CaxtonFX or HiFX who do not charge for taking euros from one account and paying it as sterling into another account. They'll offer a good exchange rate, (the more money being transferred the better the rate) - they make their profit on their exchange rate being slightly above the actual spot rate but nwill be still better than local bank.

JamesU

JasonLVC wrote: »

Friend has funds (in Euros) in their local Euro bank account.

Set up an online account (free) with a currency exchange service such as CaxtonFX or HiFX who do not charge for taking euros from one account and paying it as sterling into another account. They'll offer a good exchange rate, (the more money being transferred the better the rate) - they make their profit on their exchange rate being slightly above the actual spot rate but nwill be still better than local bank.

Do you have any feel for % on exchange?

JamesU

JasonLVC

JamesU wrote: »

Do you have any feel for % on exchange?

JamesU

I've just logged into my Caxton account and gone with 10,000 euros into sterling gave a rate of 1.1663 (or giving you £8,574 at 0.8585 euros to the Pound).

The actual interbank rate is 1.2014 or 0.8323 so you can see the difference/mark-up they have, but you'll not get those rates anywhere on the high street.

To compare, if you wanted to buy 10,000 euros cash at M&S exchanges they'll offer 1.1405 (0.8768) and the high street banks a similar level plus an additional bank transfer charge of about £25-£30 and clearly the more you want to transfer then the smaller the % between interbank rate and what the currency provider offers you makes a BIG difference.

I'm not saying Caton or HiFx will be the best rates out there, there are other proivders who'll convert currency and transfer it, I just use these two providers and never had a problem with them and saved a fortune.

JamesU

JasonLVC wrote: »

To compare, if you wanted to buy 10,000 euros cash at M&S exchanges they'll offer 1.1405 (0.8768) and the high street banks a similar level plus an additional bank transfer charge of about £25-£30 and clearly the more you want to transfer then the smaller the % between interbank rate and what the currency provider offers you makes a BIG difference.

I'm not saying Caton or HiFx will be the best rates out there, there are other proivders who'll convert currency and transfer it, I just use these two providers and never had a problem with them and saved a fortune.

Jason, Very interesting, really appreciate time taken to look at this.

Maths I have for this are: (0.8585-0.8323/0.8323)*100 = 3.1%. Does this look right your side?

For comparison I recently did a check on Euro account held here with Barclays in UK, link below. The OP was anxious about using this possibility, so I checked it out for him to put his mind at rest, and at Barclays the costs came out at 2.7% on his amount for transfer (approx 6K Euros, but rate same on anything less than 25K). Do have a look at it and see what you think relative to Caxton.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2457663

Typically I would normally expect approx 2%-2.5% costs with a better rate above 25K. Watching daily and checking/quoting on phone usually more important once you have a good system in place.

If my maths above is correct, this is a pretty good comparision both sides.......exchanges holding Euro account with Barclays in UK would seem comparable with yours at Caxton. So I guess for Dennis, extortionate would be anything greater than 3.0 - 3.5%? Obviously even a 0.5% variation is a big chunk on cash from a house sale...

In complete agreement that there is a BIG difference if you do not sort out a good way of doing the transfers. Hence my question to the OP on what was considered extortionate. And for sure, ignore the banks if you do not have a proper account set up with them.

JamesU

Degenerate

XE.com is by far the cheapest way available for a quantity that large.

Generali

Degenerate wrote: »

XE.com is by far the cheapest way available for a quantity that large.

I have also heard good things about them.

Anywhere worth their salt should be able to give you a rate available for a minute or so. If you worked it right you should be able to compare 2-3 brokers. Don't forget .01% (1 basis point) on £100,000 is a tenner. Worth having but there are limits to what you'd do for it.

michaels

Just be aware that there are regulatory issues around FX brokers - recently one went broke taking client money with it.

Another option is Western Union - If you do not have an account I have a colleague in Nigeria who could help with the routing of your transfer

silvercar

See if your bank will let you do a one off transaction through their foreign exchange department. For big amounts (100k euros +) I would expect you to be only 1% off spot. If you can fix the date in advance you may get a much better rate.