Is there a bank that does not charge to receive money from abroad?

jennifernil

Azrael_1701 wrote: »

http://www.halifax.co.uk/internationalpayments/Halifax%20IPS%20301009v2.pdf

Page 8

Thanks. Had a quick look at that tonight. I could see that they would want to charge for converting from a foreign currency, but the letters they have sent us state that the money received was in GBP. So I am not sure what they actually do for their £7. How is this payment any different from the payment of, for example, his UK State Pension, which also comes straight to our account?

I will go to our branch next week and see if I can get anywhere with them, meantime I will speak to Nationwide to see if we can get it sent there, and check out the possibilities in Norway too.

Azrael_1701

jennifernil wrote: »

Thanks. Had a quick look at that tonight. I could see that they would want to charge for converting from a foreign currency, but the letters they have sent us state that the money received was in GBP. So I am not sure what they actually do for their £7. How is this payment any different from the payment of, for example, his UK State Pension, which also comes straight to our account?

I will go to our branch next week and see if I can get anywhere with them, meantime I will speak to Nationwide to see if we can get it sent there, and check out the possibilities in Norway too.

Would never say this at work, but....

Because they can?

jennifernil

Mmmm, I think you may well be correct there!

System

jennifernil wrote: »

I could see that they would want to charge for converting from a foreign currency, but the letters they have sent us state that the money received was in GBP. So I am not sure what they actually do for their £7. How is this payment any different from the payment of, for example, his UK State Pension, which also comes straight to our account?

All banks charge for converting between currencies by putting a mark-up (or 'spread') on the central inter-bank conversion rate. In addition to that, a payment, even in GBP, arriving by SWIFT may require human intervention, unlike (about to be obsolete) BACS Direct Credits, UK Faster Payments, or SEPA Credit Transfers (alas possible only in euro).

anydroid

Since moving to the UK I've been horrified at the exorbitant fees banks charge for (what I consider to be) routine cross-border electronic transfers.

As a eurozone exile I regularly make and receive EUR payments.

The most enlightened bank I've been able to find, with a presence in the UK and Eurozone, is Danske Bank. My GBP account resides in Belfast and my EUR account in Dublin, where Danske own Northern Bank and National Irish Bank respectively. Transfers "between own accounts within the Danske group" incur no fees or charges, and are entirely self-managed through their excellent online banking system. Payments before 4pm usually pop-up in the other jurisdiction within 30 minutes.

According to Wikipedia, Danske also own Focus Bank in Norway. Assuming the same fee-waiver exists for own-account transfers from Focus, I would suggest that you open a NOK account with Focus and a GBP account with Northern Bank.

Once the money hits your Northern Bank account, you can make a (free) Faster Payments Service transfer to your normal UK account.

In my experience Danske-owned banks have excellent customer service, low/no fees and revolutionary online banking (by UK standards).

jennifernil

Thank you, I will certainly look into that!

Meantime we have arranged a free payment of the pension to an account we have in Norway with DNB Nor, so that gives us time to look at the other possibilities.

I have been to our HBOS branch to ask what these charges are all about. The girl was very pleasant, sympathetic and helpful. She contacted the International people and discovered that these charges were introduced only in December, £3 for anything over £100. Then in April the £3 was increased to £7, though no explanation was forthcoming as to how they could justify the 133% increase.

We should apparently have received a letter saying these charges were to be introduced/increased, but we did not. The original story of this being down to Lloyds was discounted, though I suspect it is the merging of the Lloyds and HBOS systems that precipitated the charge.

Apparently there is no way round this charge.

System

anydroid wrote: »

The most enlightened bank I've been able to find, with a presence in the UK and Eurozone, is Danske Bank.

Many thanks for this tip. However, at first glance, Northern Bank only wants customers who are resident in Northern Ireland, and requires you to make an appointment at a branch in Northern Ireland in order to open an account. In practice, do they accept other customers?

anydroid

YoungNick wrote: »

In practice, do they accept other customers?

Answer is yes. I over-nighted in Belfast and booked a Saturday appointment.

jennifernil

Having had a quick look, it seems you can open accounts on-line too (a trip to Belfast not being cost-effective). Some accounts state you must be NI resident, others do not say.

anydroid.....which of the accounts would be suitable for what we want to do?

There isn't much info on the Fokus Bank site re opening an account there, will need to look into that further.

The bank we already have an account with in Norway, DNB Nor, also seem to have a presence in UK, but again there is very little info on opening a personal account.

olly300

anydroid wrote: »

Since moving to the UK I've been horrified at the exorbitant fees banks charge for (what I consider to be) routine cross-border electronic transfers.

That's because they give us "free" banking for everything else if you are in credit.

Unfortunately if you happen to be in the percentage of people who actually work in the EEA or have to do other transactions in the EEA they screw you for as much money as possible on a transfer.