Best way to change currency back to pounds

united4ever

My father in law is from SIngapore and has lots of savings but cannot get more than 1% interest.　he suggested we set up a saving account or isa in the uk in his daughters name for 3 per cent ish interest. If it earns a hundred pounds or so a year he is happy.

If he gave us a few thousand singapore dollars whats the cheapest way to convert it into pounds so we can stick it in an isa or savings account in the uk? is it just the regular currency buy back options that a regular tourist would use for leftover holiday currency or is there a cheaper way? the money would be used to fund holidays in the uk so it wouldnt need to be changed back to singapore dollars in the future. Thanks

dzug1

A bank to bank transfer is normally much cheaper (for large sums) that converting cash. There may be what appears to be a large fee, but the exchange rate makes up for it.

he suggested we set up a saving account or isa in the uk in his daughters name

Remember in his daughters name means more that just that - it means she owns the money and she can do what she wants with it.

neilbond007

Bank to bank (in my experience) give a woeful rate and charge a fee.

I used a broker to transfer between accounts. No fee and the rate was 10% better than bank to bank.

Use http://www.fxcompared.com/ to check rates

nomoneytoday

You do realise that the currency risk will be a lot more than the change in interest rates if he wants to go back to SGD?

united4ever

nomoneytoday wrote: »

You do realise that the currency risk will be a lot more than the change in interest rates if he wants to go back to SGD?

Yes we do, he comes to the uk every year for holidays so would be changing the money for each trip anyway so there are no plans to be cnverting this money back to SGD. Also, the exchange rate at the moment has not been better in the last ten years at least.

united4ever

neilbond007 wrote: »

Bank to bank (in my experience) give a woeful rate and charge a fee.

I used a broker to transfer between accounts. No fee and the rate was 10% better than bank to bank.

Use http://www.fxcompared.com/ to check rates

Thanks, this is interesting, are there any risks associated with these companies, I am a bit hesitant to transfer a lt of money to some company i have not heard of. Forex come up with the best quotes, I take it they are a big player?