UK Account, International Withdrawls

RFernandes

Need some advice please; I've offered to sponsor somebody in South Africa, which involves her being able to make monthly withdrawls of roughly R 2000 from a UK funded account, any ideas as to which offering is currently better value, when taking fees and interest rate into account?

Thanks.

fawinds

Your best bet is an FairFX prepaid card in sterling.You load the card and the fee for using it is 1.5% both for purchases and ATMs.

Most other banks debit cards charge you twice that only for the exchange rate plus 1.5% to 2% ATM fee.

RFernandes

fawinds wrote: »

Your best bet is an FairFX prepaid card in sterling.You load the card and the fee for using it is 1.5% both for purchases and ATMs.

Most other banks debit cards charge you twice that only for the exchange rate plus 1.5% to 2% ATM fee.

Having a read now, thanks. I expect in my case, it's the 'Anywhere', and from what I've read so far, I'd be able to do a money transfer off my 0% CC; treated as a balance transfer?

fawinds

Yes, in your case it could be the anywhere as euros and dollars will be of no use there.

No sure about the balance transfer, but I do not believe you can make a balance transfer to a prepaid card. Anyway maybe somebody else will know that.

peterbaker

No not a balance transfer at all. A Cash Advance. I think I am right in suggesting that no-one on the forums has found that they can avoid the Cash Advance tag when they use their CC to load a prepaid Mastercard. That usually means cash advance type interest starts immediately, although I think some CCs will write off all interest if you pay in full each month.

(I learned the hard way :embarasse )

Worse still, some CCs give you a double whammy and say not only is it cash advance but it is a gambling transaction. That might incur say a £3 additional fee. This latter whammy depends on the Prepaid Mastercard issuer - apparently some of them process the "top-up" transactions with an (incorrect) industry code which implies gambling, and then some of the CC issuers jump on it and charge the extra fee (... but not all issuers in each case).

(I learned that the hard way too )

RFernandes

peterbaker wrote: »

No not a balance transfer at all. A Cash Advance. I think I am right in suggesting that no-one on the forums has found that they can avoid the Cash Advance tag when they use their CC to load a prepaid Mastercard. That usually means cash advance type interest starts immediately, although I think some CCs will write off all interest if you pay in full each month.

(I learned the hard way :embarasse )

Worse still, some CCs give you a double whammy and say not only is it cash advance but it is a gambling transaction. That might incur say a £3 additional fee. This latter whammy depends on the Prepaid Mastercard issuer - apparently some of them process the "top-up" transactions with an (incorrect) industry code which implies gambling, and then some of the CC issuers jump on it and charge the extra fee (... but not all issuers in each case).

(I learned that the hard way too )

Thanks for the heads-up.