Money coming from US - advice please

andygb

I don't know any exact figures yet, but we may be receiving some money from the US soon, as part of a relations estate, and it may be in excess of £10K equivalent.
My question is this.
Would we be better off receiving the money into one of our existing accounts, having it transferred over to sterling, which will involve charges, or would we be best advised to open a US$ account, and keep the mioney in there, and wait until the exchange rate is favourable, because at the moment sterling is quite strong against the $.
Are there any banks who offer the best rates for this kind of thing?
It is all going to happen within the next two or three weeks.
Thanks.

phildallier

Hi andygb, i live in France and for me my the better advice is to receiving the money into one of your existing accounts.
it's big money, if you try to "hide" it in an US account, you have 95 % of chance to have big "problems".

Good luck from Lyon

cos_2

From Halifax's website, hope this helps:)


International payments into your account for £100 or less (after we’ve converted the money into sterling) £2

International payments into your account over £100 (after we’ve converted the money into sterling) £7

The amount you pay will be calculated after we’ve converted the money into sterling. We’ll do this on the day we pay it into your account.

ccbrowning

Either keep it in your US account for now and wait for the rate to possibly improve (no guarantee), or transfer it across using a service like xe.com. Don't do a normal bank-to-bank transfer as the rates aren't as good and they tend to charge fees. I do this quite often in both directions.

andygb

ccbrowning wrote: »

Either keep it in your US account for now and wait for the rate to possibly improve (no guarantee), or transfer it across using a service like xe.com. Don't do a normal bank-to-bank transfer as the rates aren't as good and they tend to charge fees. I do this quite often in both directions.

I think that we may have it transferred in sterling to our current account, because we do not have any existing US$ account, and the setup and maintenance charges look to be a bit of a con - unless one is fortunate enough to be earning over £50K a year, in which case there is free banking available.

Buzby

You would be unable to open a US account remotely, however it is much easier to open a US$ denominated account with your own bank. You give the SWIFT code to the outfit crediting you, and that's it. It is there for you to gamble on the best time to transfer it to £.

SavingFish

As ccbrowning said, if you do decide to change it into sterling you should be looking at one of the dedicated forex companies (xe, Moneycorp, HIFX, ukforex) The high street banks will burn you with fees and a rubbish exchange rate.

Get a quote from each and see which is best.

If you don't like ringing around, ukforex have a helpful little tool on their site under...
forex tools -> customer rates
...which tells you the actual rate you'll get based on the amount you are exchanging (most sites just display the interbank rate which you'll never achieve).

wriggly

Try to avoid using a high street bank like Halifax. While the £7 fee seems reasonable, they will bleed you on the exchange rate.

You could contact one of the Money Brokers listed above, who will help you, and provide a better rate than the banks. But do not commit to an exchange until you know exactly how much in USD will be sent.

But in my experience, you'll get an even better deal using CurrencyFair http://www.currencyfair.com/ and their process is better when you don't know exactly how much money is coming and when. Register with them, and provide an indicative amount for a USD deposit. They will provide you with the details of their USD client account, which you can pass to the person dealing with the estate. (Make sure you give them the Reference #, and they use it in the transfer, as this links the deposit to you.)

Once the money is received, you can convert to GBP immediately, or alternatively specify an exchange rate you are willing to accept. You can then transfer it to your GBP account for a small fee (£3 last time I looked).

Yep, £3 - http://www.currencyfair.com/process-times-and-fees