exchange rates

Robin00

I wouldn't want to be biased... :P

DiggingOut

please could you tell me were is the best rate for buying euros

Are you asking about buying currency to take with you (for holiday, whatever), or are you talking about a large sum of money?

mystic_trev

I've got a hundred and twenty Guyanan dollars to change into £'s.............anyone interested!!! ;D ;D ;D

norman

JIST SPOTTIT YER POSTS!!!!!!!!

IE English = chanced on the above.

AS a mean Scottish person, I have had a Sterling AND a EURO current a/c @ CITIBANK in London for some years. As far as I can see, I get about SIX euro cents or more above other rates whenever I transfer STG to my Euro a/c. Did you wise guys out there not know about Citibank?

DiggingOut

Citibank generally gives a spread to interbank rate of 1.5-2%.  Currency brokers are 0.5-1% for large amounts.

Citibank is likely much better than your high street bank.

edit:
Also, I think you can use a currency broker to take money from one Citibank account, convert it, and put it back into another Citibank account, with no fee. So if you do a lot of this stuff you could maintain your accounts but get a better exchange rate than Citibank gives.

Robin00

To be fair Citibank are excellent - far and away the most consistently good exchange rates of the banks.

If you have accounts with Citibank and are transferring less than £25k I wouldn't bother using a broker. If you haven't, it's not worth setting the accounts up for a few transactions, use a broker instead.

Barclays are also good at the moment but the high st banks seem to go in fits and starts. This time last year HSBC were very good but now they have lower rates...

Point being that the best provider one month isn't necessarily still the best one the month after!!

DiggingOut

If you have accounts with Citibank and are transferring less than £25k I wouldn't bother using a broker. If you haven't, it's not worth setting the accounts up for a few transactions, use a broker instead.

I appreciate a broker who is honest enough to say that.

Would you still say it if the amounts are £5-10K but done several times each year?

System

I just have to say... I used Moneycorp. The money did arrive ok, but there was a lot of hassle involved. Mostly because my US financial institution (a credit union) couldn't transfer the money direct overseas -- they needed an intermediary bank -- called a "corresponding" bank. Moneycorp was almost no help at all in figuring out which corresponding bank to use, moreover, no one at the credit union could guarantee how fast the money would transfer -- or recommend a corresponding bank. And there was a deadline to it because Moneycorp wanted the wire through within 5 working days.

I literally had to phone my dad in California, ask him to do the transfer, then phone Moneycorp the next day, tell them to do/expect the transaction. Prised out of Moneycorp the name & address of their UK bank (tried to ask that bank which corresponding bank they would normally use in the USA, but the bank was completely unhelpful) Made to do lots of phone calls to establish that the corresponding bank in the USA would not add any additional charges on the wire because Moneycorp was expecting an exact amount and I didn't know what would happen if the wire turned up a bit too over or under what we had agreed on the phone....

Oh, it was a royal hassle. The friend who recommended Moneycorp to me had a similar experience with one of the biggest banks in the USA (Bank of America), so might be a common problem when transferring from US.

System

Foreign Currencies Direct? Isn't that owned by Peter Ellis, former director of Currencies Direct? Last I heard of him he "exited" from Currencies Direct a few years ago after there were a few issues with the accounts - outstanding director's loans that could possibly have had a significant impact on the balance sheet. Or perhaps my information is wrong?

As for ISX, is the RP who recommends them above the same Rafik Patel who is the Chief Exec of the company? I thought that there was a ban on self promotion.... (and on the subject of regulation, yes the company is regulated, but the FSA is quite specific about them not being able to hold client money..... I'm not sure I would want to send them my money in that case!)

Folks, be very careful about taking recommendations on bulletin boards!

DiggingOut

Alf, are you then saying that people shouldn't send money to a currency broker, but should just use our rip-off banks?

And since you are teaching us to be suspicious, how do we know you aren't just with one of their competitors, since you seem to know quite a bit about this industry?

Is there any reasonable way through this maze for people who don't know their way around, or do we just let the banks take their percentage?