Overseas Banking

mikesten

Hi all, I'm sure this has been covered elsewhere, so please accept my apologies if I'm going over old ground.

I am fortunate to have been left some money which I have invested with my sister in a property in Spain.

As I am going to spend a fair amount of time over there, would you in my position consider a Spanish based bank account? Or does anyone have any experience of this? I have been told that Solbank are a good option, as they do not charge for transfers into their accounts from UK banks. I currently use a mixture of cash and Nationwide Credit Card while I am still sorting out over there.

I would be interested in hearing peoples opinions!
Many Thanks
Mike

2sides2everystory

Citibank are also quite good in that you can open Sterling and Euro current accounts here in the UK and switch the link on your debit card anytime you like to suit just by calling 0800 005500 customer services (or the international number).

You can do interaccount FOREX transfers online and immediately see what rate they are giving you before you click OK. They only charge the normal buy sell spread with no additional fees or commission for that.

I have heard however that Santander (naturally) are worth a look too for this kind of thing although perhaps I should perish that thought?

jonesMUFCforever

Do you know which bank/branch is the most convenient to use when you are there?

That would be my first objective.
No point in having an account in a foreign country if you cannot access it when there.

(I think LTSB do free transfers to one Spanish bank not sure which one though.)

gfplux

If you have property in Spain then you should have a Spanish Bank account.
Open at a Bank that is convenient to you when you are at your Spanish property.
Remember your Spanish bank account will be in Euro's.
If you transfer sterling from the UK Bank then charges will be incurred even if they say the transfer is free you will pay by getting a poor exchange rate.
IMO you should check if your UK bank can open a euro account for you. Then once having Euro's in that account you can use Internet banking to move the money.
Hope you understand.

benjus

Having a local Spanish account is certainly useful, as you can use it for direct debits for utility payments, receivng cheques and bank transfers, etc. etc.

However, Spanish accounts are generally not free, and may charge extra for things like having a debit card. You also usually have to pay to withdraw cash from a different bank's ATMs.

If you're not moving to Spain permanently, I would probably use a combination of:

1. A cheap, no-frills Spanish account for the kind of things I mentioned above - just keep this topped up with enough money to cover the costs.
2. A UK account that's free to use abroad (e.g. Metro Bank) - keep your real money here and withdraw it in Spain.

A UK credit card with no overseas charges would also be useful, as you have more protection than with a debit card.

To top up your Spanish account you can either withdraw cash from account (2) while you're there, or use a currency broker to transfer directly.

Of course, if you have a view on where the Euro/Sterling exchange rate is going and want to keep your money in Euros, you may not want to bother having a UK account.

Mikhail

ashleyingle wrote: »

You would get, on average, 4% more Euros by using a broker rather than the your bank directly and you pay no transfer fees.

That's because brokers hide all their fees and commissions into the exchange rate.

In Greece, my bank charge me 0,40 cents to send money to my UK account, to do the same thing but the other way round by some reason cost £25. Someone is very greedy.

benjus

Mikhail wrote: »

That's because brokers hide all their fees and commissions into the exchange rate.

In Greece, my bank charge me 0,40 cents to send money to my UK account, to do the same thing but the other way round by some reason cost £25. Someone is very greedy.

Banks hide fees in the exchange rate too, and typically offer worse exchange rates than brokers. For example, if I wanted to send £1000 to France today, the recipient would get €1080 if I used HSBC (the cheapest of the major UK banks), or €1116 if I used UK Forex.

Mikhail

benjus wrote: »

Banks hide fees in the exchange rate too, and typically offer worse exchange rates than brokers. For example, if I wanted to send £1000 to France today, the recipient would get €1080 if I used HSBC (the cheapest of the major UK banks), or €1116 if I used UK Forex.

I can assure you there is a solution for everything but I need to know more information to choose the best way to proceed.

1. Amount
2. Frequency of transfers
3. From where (e.g., from the UK in cash) to where (e.g., Spain bank account)
4. Purpose of transfer (e.g., buy a house, regular expenses, supporting someone, receiving a pension, etc.)

The 'worse' and the best transaction I’ve ever facilitated was selling a property in Russia (in rubbles, that can be only converted into USD or EUR for a further transfer abroad and in my case it would have the 2nd conversion into GBP, I would make so many people happy, but instead I opened an offshore account in Jersey with Citi IPB in rubbles (free for 70k+ balances); free Citibank rubbles account in Russia and then I transferred rubbles from Moscow to Jersey free of any commissions/fees/charges and later I converted everything in GBP using Citibank market exchange rates, that is the same with the interbank exchange rate. Potential loss was about £7500, I've loss 0. Was it worth the effort? So every problem has a solution. PS. Brockers wasn't even an option in this case, most of them won't accept rubbles and most of them will ask you to send money to the UK bank account for a future processing that was quite pointless. So I've literally got away with no fees/commissions or charges. :T

Mikhail

ashleyingle wrote: »

Very few brokers, like myself, can do Roubles without converting it to another currency first.

I am extremely doubtful Citi did your money transfer free of charge, but I am assuming you have premier/ private banking, therefore they may have been tighter to the selling interbank rate than for the average high street bank account maybe 0.5%-1% vs 4-5% spread!

It is free private banking if you can deposit £70k or equivalent in other currencies, otherwise $100/month, as I was selling a property I easily went above the limit and didn't pay the fee.

Nowadays anyone can be a currency broker I can open 21 accounts in different currencies with Citi and start accepting even rubbles. You can read more about their FX services here:
http://www.citibank.com/ipb/europe/wealthproducts/fxsolutions/foreignexchange.htm

I also believe there is an app for iPhone where you can see Citi's market exchange rates.