Outrageous international Bank Charges- Santander

henm2

A SEPA payment from a UK sterling account to an account in another country in the eurozone which is in euros and the payment is done online through internet banking will usually reach the beneficiary account by the next working day and cost £4-00. (Well I found it operates like that when done through HSBC in the UK)

pinkdalek

Of course you could have booked a flight or used Eurostar or the ferry, paid petrol or taxi from the airport and gone to the bank directly in France with your 63 Euros and deposited it in.

I'm sure that would cost you less than £25 to do........

If you are not happy then bank elsewhere, some offer cheaper transfers depending on the amounts, some will do it cheaper if you process online.

But you are right it is about time banks stopped acting like a business and worked more like charities or free public conveniences.

RetiredInThailand

grumbler wrote: »

In fact you said that there should be no extra fees on the top of the currency exchange one.

Actually I said that there should be no extra fee (like a SWIFT fee) for a small SEPA transfer and that the only other cost involved should be the exchange weighting.

So, to recap, small SEPA transfers should cost just a few GBP plus any loss due to the exchange weighting. They should not cost GBP25 which sounds more like Santander's charge for international SWIFT transfers.

opinions4u

RetiredInThailand wrote: »

Actually I said that there should be no extra fee (like a SWIFT fee) for a small SEPA transfer and that the only other cost involved should be the exchange weighting.

So, to recap, small SEPA transfers should cost just a few GBP plus any loss due to the exchange weighting. They should not cost GBP25 which sounds more like Santander's charge for international SWIFT transfers.

So cutting to the chase, please can you quote and link to the regulations around this requirement not to charge.

xyz123

opinions4u wrote: »

I'd be surprised if it takes 5 working days as that would break a law.

.

What law? got any referenceS?

_Andy_

How dare companies charge for services and make profit! What a scandal!

opinions4u

xyz123 wrote: »

What law? got any referenceS?

Start here:
http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/what_do_we_do/european_payments/the_payment_services_directive/

For payments in euros, in the domestic currency of the EU member state concerned or where there is only one currency conversion between euro and the domestic currency, and the transfer is cross-border and denominated in euro, the PSRs introduce a default maximum timescale for execution of D+1, but PSPs can agree up to D+3 until 1 January 2012 with their customers. D+1 means the business day following the business day on which the payment was made (e.g. payment initiated on a Tuesday would reach the payee on the Wednesday). D+3 means it would take three business days to reach the payee. Further information regarding the use of the UK payment schemes to meet the D+1 maximum execution time requirement can be found in the Payments Council industry best practice guidance note.

b33k34

Just to resurrect and old thread.

Santander are the biggest bunch of ****s when it comes to international payments. I've had a 6 month discussion with them after I noticed that the rates they seemed to charge me were significantly worse than the indicative rates they gave when I set up the payments. I wanted to know what their rates were for each day and how they were calculated.

They first told me the rates were variable during the day so it depended when you made the request, then that the rates were fixed for a day at the start of the day (which would mean there should never be any variation between quote and actual)

They said they wouldn't / couldn't tell me those daily rates. After a lot of complaining and a 6 month wait I got the rates through

- they have a very wide spread
- their rates are worse than high street tourist rates
- they have expensive charges on top.
- they don't support SEPA (so it's £25 to make any payment).
- payments seek to take a long while - more than the guidelines above

DONT use Santander for international payments. There are much cheaper online services now (eg Transferwise) that are simple to use.

jonesMUFCforever

I am not a supporter of Santander in any way but the above post is just untrue .

Herbalus

Ah, posts from opinions4u. Brings back memories!