Barclays Bank cash in foreign currency into foreign currency account, in store.

MikeDaniel

Hi Guys,

I'm currently working for a client in the US (I'm from the UK) and we're trying to figure out ways to make multiple payments financially viable. I currently have a USD account with Barclays to help prevent any banks from ripping me off when doing currency conversions, but sadly any international charges will still apply to the sender. Here's what we've hit so far:

He could send me a direct transfer, but his bank charges $45 per transaction to another country. Now if he was paying me in one lump sum that would be fine, but he has a payment plan in mind consisting of 6 payments which makes this totally unviable for him ($270 just to transfer some money is ridiculous in my opinion).

Another option was through PayPal or similar, but PayPal, not only charge 2% (which across the entire payment will rack up a large amount), but they also take a profit on the exchange rate I believe.

We're currently looking into 3rd party vendors like fairfx, but I'm not holding my breath.

The last idea we've had is to send it by cash (insured & signed for) in the post and then for me to deposit it in my local Barclays chain. Now, will Barclays even do this? I don't want a currency conversion, I just want them to take the USD and put it into my USD account. Is this possible? I've never tried such a transaction and sadly their lines are closed (business support has no idea) so I can't find out.

So, does anyone know if Barclays offer this service in store, or even better, a way to make my US client's payments financially viable for him?

Thanks for any help,
Regards,
Mike

Archi_Bald

Your best bet is very likely one of the specialist currency transfer outfits. http://www.fxcompared.com/

Crystallady

You'd be able to deposit a USD cheque into your USD account without incurring conversion fees ( they would just send the cheque and credit to the international branch which holds your account) but the high street branch would have to convert the dollars to sterling if they accepted cash as their tills are in sterling so they have no way of "dealing" in dollars & wouldn't be able to process the entry to your account.

MikeDaniel

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Your best bet is very likely one of the specialist currency transfer outfits.

Archi Bald, thanks for the awesome link. Those rates are really good. Do you think any would transfer money to the USD account, thus avoiding the conversion (they do such good rates as it is that it may not even be worth it, but still)?

Crystallady wrote: »

You'd be able to deposit a USD cheque into your USD account without incurring conversion fees ( they would just send the cheque and credit to the international branch which holds your account) but the high street branch would have to convert the dollars to sterling if they accepted cash as their tills are in sterling so they have no way of "dealing" in dollars & wouldn't be able to process the entry to your account.

Crystallady- Thanks, that's perfect. At least we now know that's not an option as international cheques apparently take 4-6 weeks to clear.

noh

Currencyfair.com or similar would be the cheapest way.