Paying a euro bill from UK current account

NFH

samtuke wrote: »

I suppose that Nationwide doesn't support SEPA because it is a building society. I called the Cooperative Bank however and they also said that they don't support SEPA, and they don't have any plans to do so either (I spoke to the international transfers department).

How will they comply with Regulation 70(1) of the Payment Services Regulations 2009 if they don't support SEPA?

samtuke

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NFH

samtuke wrote: »

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Ask them by what method they would send a payment to another EEA country and when it would arrive in the payee's bank account. It would probably arrive after the next working day if they are using standard SWIFT rather than SEPA, thereby breaching Regulation 70(1).

System

samtuke wrote: »

I suppose that Nationwide doesn't support SEPA because it is a building society. I called the Cooperative Bank however and they also said that they don't support SEPA, and they don't have any plans to do so either (I spoke to the international transfers department).

You were misinformed. The Co-operative Bank has been a participant in the SEPA payment schemes since 1/11/2010. The UK members are on pages 114 and 115 of the pdf version of the list here:
http://epc.cbnet.info/content/adherence_database
(The Co-operative Bank appears under T, and with Balloon Street spelt wrong.)
My French pension arrives same day in my Co-operative Bank current account. The Co-op calls outgoing SEPA Credit Transfers 'structured payments', just to confuse you further. They charge a ridiculous £7 each for them (I think), though this is less ridiculous than most other UK banks. There is, alas, no longer any domestic benchmark for the cost of transferring euros, because UK banks took care to abolish BACS euro transfers a couple of years ago.
Nationwide Building Society is not a SEPA member because its inept management can't be bothered. They only offer to send and receive payments by SWIFT. SWIFT is (so Nationwide tell me) now PSD-compliant within the EEA, ie credit next business day. Incidentally, Nationwide can't even get right the instructions for receiving a SWIFT transfer. They tell you to quote the BIC for HSBC as intermediary, as well as the BIC for Nationwide. In fact, it is up to the sending foreign bank to use the intermediary of its choice, which will in practice be HSBC.