Stuck on deposting Euro cheque in the UK

khaaaaan

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, apologies if it should be in another section.

I will be receiving inheritance money in euros in the next couple of weeks (€30,000 in the form of a cheque) but I'm stuck on what the best option for where to deposit it would be. These are the options I've come up with so far myself, I would appreciate anyone that has experience of this helping me with which is best, or if there is something I haven't considered:

If it matters, the bulk of the money will be going toward a mortgage deposit in a few years time and won't be touched in the short term, a small amount will go toward paying off existing debts - So I don't want to leave it all in a Euro account to accrue interest, I need a small amount of it at least to be in Sterling.

1. Ring around a few different UK banks, find out their conversion rates for €-£, fees, etc. pick the one with the best deal and open an account to deposit the cheque into. Then either transfer the money electronically (now converted to sterling) to my usual account or leave it where it is while I figure out the best savings options.

2. Open a European account and deposit the cheque (unsure how I would even do this if it's a European bank that has no branches in the UK?) then transfer the money electronically to my UK account at a hopefully decent exchange rate (surely electronic transfers are fee free even for different currencies?). But if I did this do they use the exchange rate set by the UK bank the money is going into or the rate set by the euro account's bank?

I would really appreciate any advice at all, I'm completely clueless at the minute.

jimjames

Personally I would just pay into my bank account. Cost when I did the same with US $ was about £10, quite a big chunk of my cheque but won't be too bad on 30k.

As you'd be spending in £ it seems best to transfer into sterling once you have it rather than taking on currency risk

bigadaj

jimjames wrote: »

Personally I would just pay into my bank account. Cost when I did the same with US $ was about £10, quite a big chunk of my cheque but won't be too bad on 30k.

As you'd be spending in £ it seems best to transfer into sterling once you have it rather than taking on currency risk

Did you get a decent rate from your bank, the high street banks can be pretty poor I would have thought.

SliAbhaile

You will be screwed on the rate by your bank.

Open an account with currencyfair.com, get the cheque made out to their Euro client account with your customer reference number (paying in details are on their site), exchange for Sterling at a very competitive rate, transfer to any of your UK accounts when you are ready.


PS: I would be surprised if you will be paid by cheque, pretty much everyone prefers electronic transfer these days. That makes the currencyfair even easier.

Porcupine

SliAbhaile wrote: »

You will be screwed on the rate by your bank.

Which is far, far more important than £30 or whatever to cash the cheque. Rate spreads can be up to 3% - 3% of £30K is £900.

Open an account with currencyfair.com, get the cheque made out to their Euro client account with your customer reference number (paying in details are on their site), exchange for Sterling at a very competitive rate, transfer to any of your UK accounts when you are ready.

Open a Citibank UK Euro current account (costs £5pm). Deposit the money in there (try to get an electronic payment, will make it much easier). When you are ready, or when the rates are looking good, send the money to CurrencyFair and transfer to sterling.

CurrencyFair (like all forex brokers) has limited protection if things go wrong. That means you want your money in there for the smallest amount of time. If you have somewhere to keep the euro safe, you can transfer whenever you want to - you don't have to do a shotgun transfer straightaway.