Using Cards Abroad/bank accounts

fawinds

bbxsa wrote: »

I sent £100 from my RBS account to my Citibank AUD savings account and was credited with AUD 161.35 on 23/Feb. This seems like a fair rate.

But when I emailed to ask about their rate, they replied:
"Our FX rates are in tandem with the market rates. Please note that there will be a commission charge of approximately 2.5% on the value of the transfer. The commission will be included in the FX rate itself. These rates keep changing therefore the exchange rate that will be applied to the funds transfer depends only at the Fx rate which is available on our system at the time of transferring funds."

The rate seems too good for them to have taken 2.5% but I can not be certain.

Today I have received in my euro account £50 sent on Monday from HSBC. They have paid €59.10 which matches opening rate advertised by FT today: 1.1805

Even if you do the maths, the exchange rate Citibank does when sending money from a sterling account helt at Citibank to an euro account also held at Citibank has 2% load.

Thus, in short, no idea where they got the 2.5% you mention.

Toe-Jam

Pedro1874 wrote: »

I have just looked at the Debit card for the Norwich & Peterborough Building society. I have beeen told over the phone (and the website substantiates this) that if you open a "Gold Light" a/c and make 5 transactions per month you have NO charges whatsoever on overseas transactions or ATM withdrawals. You get the Visa exchange rate too. Sounds too good to be true. Can anyone verify this? I note that someone above has said they are "choosey".

Yes it is true, and yes it is a hard account to get.

bbxsa

fawinds wrote: »

Even if you do the maths, the exchange rate Citibank does when sending money from a sterling account helt at Citibank to an euro account also held at Citibank has 2% load.

Thus, in short, no idea where they got the 2.5% you mention.

I agree. I asked about the GBP/SGD rate on the phone today and was quoted 2.031 and 2.111 (which is a spread of about 4% -- ie 2% either side of the midpoint).

But it seems like that is the rate/fee for a transfer from a Citibank GBP account to Citibank non-GBP account. So far, your experience and mine indicate sending funds from a non-Citibank GBP account to a Citibank non-GBP account appear to go through at about the interbank rate.

bbxsa

I sent £100 to my Citibank SGD account and was credited today (4/Mar) with 206.26.

XE.com shows the rate as 2.064 with the lowest point in the past day at 2.057.

If one subtracts 2.5% from that low quote you get a rate of close to 2. So Citibank surely does not appear to be adding much of a markdown and do seem to be giving interbank exchange rate (or at the very least a close rate).

Pedro1874

Toe-Jam wrote: »

Yes it is true, and yes it is a hard account to get.

Well I have closed my Nationwide Flexi a/c which I used to obtain the Nationwide Debit Card to use abroad when it was free and have successfully opened a Norwich and Peterborough Gold Light a/c and will report back if there are any problems/discrepancies from what I was told. I applied by phone as the security/identity checks were done instantly and all I had to do was sign the application form which came completed in the mail the next day. I intend to use the a/c in the same way I used my Nationwide a/c. Transfer money from my main bank a/c before I travel and use the card 5 times a month. No big deal. No fees for purchases or ATM withdrawals and the "perfect" Visa exchange rate to boot. With my Bank of Scotland Visa electron card for fee free cheap airline tickets all that frustration at getting ripped off has gone again.:)

littlemrtinkle

anyone care to comment on the norwich and peterbourgh situation

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=512585&in_page_id=2


http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/savings-and-banking/article.html?in_article_id=524602&in_page_id=7

Roger1

N+P will probably 'merge' with another building society if necessary. Nationwide seems to be the vacuum cleaner these days for building societies that have bitten off more than they can chew, so I guess NW could be the rescuer.

As a genuine Nationwide member of many years' standing who feels cheated that less loyal members have stopped some of my benefits, I won't be happy if N+P do 'merge' with NW and bring along too many applicants doing what an earlier poster says he will do - though (clearly speculating) I wouldn't expect a 'merged' NW/N+P to continue an offer unavailable to NW members.

avqs43

On 21 February I wrote to Santander (Sant) as a result of information from chattychappy, (see above). I was delighted to receive a reply dated 28 February in which I was refunded the £1.41 interest charged.

That's the good news.

Having worked closely with complaints departments in large companies before I retired, I am fully aware that the speed of reply is more important than the quality. You may think that I am griping a little. After all, I received a quick reply and my money back.

To reiterate, I withdrew €300 on 30 January in the Canaries. That transaction reached my Zero credit card account on 31 January. On 1 February I transferred £300 to the account by quick transfer from my A & L current account. This showed up immediately in my C Card acct on that date. I had had a balance of some £2000 on the previous statement on a 0% intro rate. Having been told by the Sant call centre that any payment would be set against the €300 I was content that little interest would be due. However, when my statement was raised, I was charged £1.41 in interest as opposed to the 50 odd pence maximum that I had anticipated.

Having posted to this thread, chattychappy showed me the error of my ways. The payment only clears amounts on the existing statement, rather than items still in the pipeline. Therefore the letter was sent to Sant in which I said that the call centre had misled me.

A quick quote from the reply goes like this. "This means you have been charged interest from the date the transaction charged the account on 31 January 2011, until the account was paid in full on 1 February 2011. Please be aware that although your payment is noted on your statement on 1 February 2011 when the company received it, a transferred payment can take a further 3-5 days to clear onto the account. Therefore the interest of £1.41 has been applied to the account from the date the transaction debited the account, until the payment of £300 cleared onto the account". It continues, "The credit of £300 was offset direct to the cash withdrawal, based on our new Terms in applying payments to the highest rate firstly." There then follows a sentence which says that if I don't want to pay interest, don't withdraw cash. Very customer focussed.

I was not happy with the reply, because my statement was due on 9th Feb. The €300 converted to just over £258. Work this out. £258 multiplied by 2.07% per month interest, divided by 30 (days in month) times 9 (days from 31 Jan to statement date and it comes to about £1.60, slightly more than the £1.41 charged. I was therefore, not convinced that the £300 had been set against the €300 cash withdrawal, based on chattychappy's information and my thorough examination of the small print. 9 days seems a little more than the 3-5 days supposedly needed for a transfer.

I waited before I made comment, until my March 10th statement was raised. Sure enough, the £1.41 had been refunded, but I have now been charged £0.89 in interest. The Feb statement had intimated that I would pay £5.11 if the minimum payment was made. Until this incident I had been paying the minimum on direct debit. Now work this out. £5.11 divided by 30 (days in month) multiplied by 5 (the days from the statement date 9th Feb until the total bill was cleared on 14th. About £0.85 pretty close to the £0.89 charge made!

It appears that the complaints section does not know the rules, but rather they make a guess as to what happens. But the turnaround is quick:)

I will give a further update when I receive a reply.

interbear

Interesting read.

Was about to apply for a Norwich & Peterborough account as a result of Nationwide removing their fee-free foreign transactions/ATM withdrawals.

Will hold fire and wait to see who acquires N&P.....

Roger1

Roger1 wrote: »

N+P will probably 'merge' with another building society if necessary. Nationwide seems to be the vacuum cleaner these days for building societies that have bitten off more than they can chew, so I guess NW could be the rescuer.

It seems that Yorkshire BS is the BS of choice, at least for N+P.

N+P? Huh! Some of us remember the N+P aka the National & Provincial Bank, which merged with Westminster Bank to form NatWest.

Then there was Provincial BS which became part of another N+P, the National & Provincial BS, later subsumed into Abbey National/Abbey and ultimately Santander.

N+P Norwich & Peterborough looks about to bite the dust. What will the next N+P be?