my reasons for changing from nationwide to natwest

fawinds

wheelz wrote: »

Thanks Fawinds, yes I'm going to look into a euro card/account for when I am abroad. You're the second person recommending that. Is that one you top up before you go and then just take the money out while abroad?

Nope. The citibank account is a full current account in euros and it comes with a debit card. This would be good if, for example, you receive payments in euros. Give your account details to whoever sends you euros and the money will arrive there and remain in euros. Then you decide if you want to convert it to sterling or just use it when you need to pay in euros.

I use this as I receive some payments in euros, so when I travel to the eurozone, I use the debit card with the euro account.

The prepaid card you top up is the FairFX euro card. This is a card where you put your sterling and they exchange it to euros at their own exchange rate which is about 1.5% above the mastercard rate. However you pay a small €1.50 fee for using cash machines abroad. I have found that this card cannot be used at unattended pump machines in France, but on average is good.

I've got the two of them, so it is your choice. But if you receive euros, my advise is a citibank euro current account.

wheelz

Fawinds this is excellent advice. Since I've stopped my dutch bank account as they were charging a monthly fee for an account that I hardly used I have had my euro gifts from my parents come into my nationwide account. What you're suggesting seems a much better idea! The citibank euro account. And I might get the other one as well.

Can I transfer money from the euro account to my sterling account? Should there be 'too much' in the euro account and I actually want to use some of it (here).

fawinds

Go for it as it is completely free to maintain and to use the debit card in the euroland. I have had mine for less than a month and am quite happy with it.

Yes, you can transfer any money from the euro account to an sterling account at a reasonable exchange rate. They do not have yet faster payments, so be ready to wait 3 days for the money to arrive in your Natwest account. On their website they say they expect FP to be available later this year, which would be a good thing.

wheelz

Can I transfer money from the euro account to my sterling account? Should there be 'too much' in the euro account and I actually want to use some of it (here).

fawinds

wheelz wrote: »

Can I transfer money from the euro account to my sterling account? Should there be 'too much' in the euro account and I actually want to use some of it (here).

Sorry, I edited the above post with the answer.

However may I add that the way to do this is to have two current accounts with citibank, one in euros and the other in sterling. Move euros to the sterling account, which is instant, and then from there move sterling anywhere.

They do not ask you for any fees or minimum balance, so you can keep your accounts with zero balance when not used.

Olipro

wheelz wrote: »

*sigh*

I am talking about the normal payments you do online on a sunday from your computer at home.

*SIGH*

So am I, !!!!!!, the information I gave is correct, if you're sending a payment from Nationwide's online banking, on a sunday and it's under £1000 and doesn't put you over the cumulative limit, it will go by FPS.

Olipro

fawinds wrote: »

They do not ask you for any fees

that's not strictly true, they apply a spread to the currency exchange rate which they make a profit on.

wheelz

fawinds wrote: »

However may I add that the way to do this is to have two current accounts with citibank, one in euros and the other in sterling. Move euros to the sterling account, which is instant, and then from there move sterling anywhere.

That would mean lots of accounts!

Thanks for that link, I had a look at the table and Santander is really poor £300 maximum. Nationwide should be taking longer only when transferring £1000 or over but the person on the phone forgot to tell me this. I wanted to transfer more so it wasn't instant.

missile

fawinds wrote: »

.... You may wonder, if I do the exchange through citibank, how good is it? Well, not the best but definitely not the worst. Right now it is 1.1911 euros per pound, ....

Interesting,:T
If you pay £100 into your citibank euro account, you get 119,11 € in your account, or are there any charges levied on the transaction.

Why do you need to use the FairFX euro card? Can you not simply use the Citibank Debit Card and thus incur no charges?

fawinds

missile wrote: »

Interesting,:T
If you pay £100 into your citibank euro account, you get 119,11 € in your account, or are there any charges levied on the transaction.

Why do you need to use the FairFX euro card? Can you not simply use the Citibank Debit Card and thus incur no charges?

That is what you get, no other charges.

I have only had the citibank account for less than one month, but now it is the one I use. I'll keep my fairfx card as a backup.