SEPA and European bank transfers - banks "scam" again

kehall

As some of you may know, paying money to someone abroad via an international money bank transfer (BIC/IBAN stuff) results in a ridiculous fee, e.g. at least £21 with the Lloyds TSB.

Now there is something new called SEPA (google it, good wiki note on there), the idea supposed to bring costs in line with 'domestic' transfers (like BACS - which as you know, are free to consumers and very low cost to businesses, around 10p for small business accounts). This Single European Payment Area should increase trade and help smooth things out at times of hardship!

Thinking this is great news, I phoned the bank. Imagine my UTTER shock to find out they still want to charge no less than £19 for a SEPA Credit Transfer !!! :eek:

What is going on? Apparently the European Parliament mandated that a bank charges the same amount for SEPA as they charge for domestic, which should be max of 10p given the above, not £19, more than 2 orders of magnitude higher and not 'significantly cheaper'!!!

Am very disgruntled and thought this should be brought to more public attention as the banks are clearly trying it on YET again! grrrrrrr :mad:

Keith

NFH

kehall wrote: »

What is going on? Apparently the European Parliament mandated that a bank charges the same amount for SEPA as they charge for domestic, which should be max of 10p given the above, not £19, more than 2 orders of magnitude higher and not 'significantly cheaper'!!!

I think you'll find that Lloyds TSB charge a lot more than 10p for a EUR payment within the UK. The amount that they charge for domestic GBP payments is irrelevant, as the legislation is based only on the charges for EUR and SEK payments.

jonesMUFCforever

OP you may not have noticed but we use sterling as our currency not euro.
SEPA payments euro to euro may be a lot less and cheaper transfers in sterling to euro are coming in probably by the end of the year.

kehall

It costs £19 even if you have a Euro account in the UK !

Even when disregarding any EUR/GBP conversion which is another ball game, the fact is that an EUR->EUR transfer should not cost anything like £19 and should be closer if not equal to the domestic fees per the 'legislation'.

Given the electronic nature of everything these days I really don't see anything other than pure profiteering going on.

System

EC Regulation 924/2009 requires a bank in a EU country to charge the same for transferring euro to another EU country as it does to transfer euro within its country.
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/payments/crossborder/index_en.htm
EU countries that do not use euro can apply the regulation to their own currency. The Swedish goverment did so. Brown-Blair, in their zeal not to offend UK banks, chose not to apply the regulation to GBP.

UK banks used to operate BACS euro transfers, at zero or minimal cost. Giving the excuse that they were little used, UK banks abolished these. That conveniently ensures that there is no UK benchmark for the cost of transferring euro. UK banks therefore can and do make charges which are absurd, given that SEPA credit transfers are completely automated.

Citibank was offering SEPA credit transfers free, but I think is currently charging £10.

NFH

kehall wrote: »

Given the electronic nature of everything these days I really don't see anything other than pure profiteering going on.

Yes, the fee of £19 for a low cost electronic payment is subsidising the thousands of people who unnecessarily use costly paper-based payments (cheques) for free. There is definitely an imbalance of fees here which don't reflect cost.

However, your belief that the banks are in breach of EU regulations in this regard is incorrect.

windecopower

kehall wrote: »

As some of you may know, paying money to someone abroad via an international money bank transfer (BIC/IBAN stuff) results in a ridiculous fee, e.g. at least £21 with the Lloyds TSB.

Now there is something new called SEPA (google it, good wiki note on there), the idea supposed to bring costs in line with 'domestic' transfers (like BACS - which as you know, are free to consumers and very low cost to businesses, around 10p for small business accounts). This Single European Payment Area should increase trade and help smooth things out at times of hardship!

Thinking this is great news, I phoned the bank. Imagine my UTTER shock to find out they still want to charge no less than £19 for a SEPA Credit Transfer !!! :eek:

What is going on? Apparently the European Parliament mandated that a bank charges the same amount for SEPA as they charge for domestic, which should be max of 10p given the above, not £19, more than 2 orders of magnitude higher and not 'significantly cheaper'!!!

Am very disgruntled and thought this should be brought to more public attention as the banks are clearly trying it on YET again! grrrrrrr :mad:

Keith

You think that's bad we are trying to transfer the proceeds of our house sale from Spain to England and the Spanish bank want on top of the €20 transfer fee a 0.5% of the full amount, surely this is daylight robbery!!

windecopower

You think that's bad we are trying to transfer the proceeds of our house sale from Spain to England and the Spanish bank want on top of the €20 transfer fee a 0.5% of the full amount, surely this is daylight robbery!! over €1200 for a few keystrokes and a five minutes of the banks time

pmduk

Windecopower, in future if you want to add to a post you've just sent , you'll find it easier and less time-consuming to click on the edit link and add to what you've already written, rather than type the whole lot again. HTH, it's nice to see new faces on here

jonesMUFCforever

windecopower wrote: »

You think that's bad we are trying to transfer the proceeds of our house sale from Spain to England and the Spanish bank want on top of the €20 transfer fee a 0.5% of the full amount, surely this is daylight robbery!! over €1200 for a few keystrokes and a five minutes of the banks time

What would the charge be for a bank draft?

You still would have to pay a commission for converting the cheque here of course which might make the whole transaction more expensive.