Large International Money Transfers Discussion area

runciblespoon

I don't have exact numbers to hand, but it might not be too useful. The reason is that they don't have a fixed margin off the interbank rate so you could compare. When you ask for a quote they go into the market and see who is offering what at any given time, which quite often depends on what other deals are going through.

For example, they might be doing a £1million sell deal when a few minutes later you come along and want to sell £10,000. If they can turn that into a £1.01million deal by combining the two transactions then they can get you a better rate. If they have to match you with someone buying only £10,000 then you wouldn't get such a good rate. Alternatively they might be able to do it in-house and avoid going to the market.

That's the case for some brokers anyway - others seem to operate on one rate.
For the last £20000 to EUR exchange I did interbank was about 1.280x and best price I got was 1.2740 from Moneycorp. So that's the sort of margin we're talking about (HiFX was worst at just under 1.26).

So it really is worth opening lots of accounts and phoning around.

occamsrazor

That's interesting, I guess I hadn't thought of the various factors that might legitimately vary, I thought they did have a fixed offset from the interbank rate but guess I am wrong.
In an ideal world I'd open multiple accounts, but as a non-UK-resident it is a bit of a hassle, so I was trying to only have to open one.

runciblespoon

OK, I've found my notes. It was Currencies Direct best last time I enquired, not Moneycorp:

Interbank was between 1.2801 and 1.2816 according to Yahoo
Spot rates:
Currencies Direct: 1.2740
Foreign Currencies Direct: 1.2700
Moneycorp: 1.2670
HiFX: 1.2645

Most transfers are fee-free (HiFX say they'll refund any charges by the recipient bank) but FCD adds £15 transfer fee for amounts under £50K + £12 certification fee (if the recipient country needs proof of where the funds have come from).


On my previous enquiry:

Foreign Currencies Direct:
Interbank 1.2746
Spot 1.2690
6 month forward 1.2591

Currencies Direct:
Interbank 1.2760
Spot 1.2672
6 month forward 1.2584

HiFX:
Spot 1.2616
6 month forward 1.2521

So Foreign Currencies Direct won that. Note the jitter in interbank rates. Those were the rates the brokers quoted - whether market noise or because they use different interbank sources I don't know.

One advantage of having a good relationship with a broker is that you can do small exchanges efficiently too - if you need to convert a thousand or two then they can often do that at a preferable rate.

haggybaggy

Hi all,

As with most who seem to post on this forum I am looking to transfer money overseas. My situation is that we are moving to Canada and have already found and put a deposit on a house. We now have to find a way to transfer around £60K in order to pay the agreed down payment in October; however, after using our UK bank to send over the $20K deposit last month to our bank account in Canada, I found the charges and the fact that we ended up paying £10.7K a little scary, I was expecting it to be less than that. More importantly the cost of sending £60K to Canada at the above rates is not something I relish.

I have seen that there are numerous companies that I could use to transfer the money, but like most I want to ensure we get as many Canadian $ for our pounds as poss.

[FONT=&quot]Of all the companies what would b the 3 most highly recommended based on peoples past experiences.[/FONT]

stingyscot

Husband works and is paid in Euroland, and sends regular amounts of approx EU9000 per month back to our bank a/c in UK. For the past 2.5 years we have been using his European bank (from ABN-AMRO into cahoot [Abbey National]) and although charges have never been declared, they say they use the Reuters rate and the amounts we received seem reasonable. Suddenly, about 4 months ago, the amounts of sterling we receive are down by about £500 per transaction on what we used to get. We can get no sense out of either bank, and no explanation for the sudden change.
Does anyone know of any recent change in rules? Is it likely to have anything to do with Abbey being bought by santander, or AMN-AMRO by RBS? And would we be better now to use a broker?

buglawton

I would carefully verify what has been going on via a historical exchange rate check, eg http://www.x-rates.com/cgi-bin/hlookup.cgi (use of pop-up blocker recommended)
Then decide if you are being swizzled or not.
If anything, you should be receiving MORE £££s as the £ has fallen sharply against the Euro lately.

stingyscot

[If anything, you should be receiving MORE £££s as the £ has fallen sharply against the Euro lately.[/quote]
Yes, we know, which is why we suspect skulduggery by one or other of the banks, but it's like trying to extract blood from a stone when we ask for info from them. The callcentre operators know nothing, and say they'll pass the queries on, but they won't let you speak directly to the foreign transfers department, and we never get anything back.

spinks

I have recently opened an account with Foreign Currencies Direct as I need to transfer a significant amount of cash for a house I am having built in Germany.

At no time during this set up have I been asked to provide proof of ID yet 2 weeks after my account has been set up and the day I am expecting the funds to be in my German account I have now received an email asking for certified copies of my ID as I am not on the voters roll.

I can see no reason why I am not on the voters roll as we received the voting forms in our names at our UK address but on checking my credit file they are correct and there are no names listed.

I understand the requirements to satisfy money laundering legislation but I am rather annoyed to say the least that they didn't ask for this before I moved the money from my offset mortgage.

I have got people expecting payments this week for the land, plans and planning permission and it looks like I won't have the money for them because it is too late today to get the documents certified and sent and the BFPO isn't always the fastest of services and usually takes about 3-5 days to reach the UK.

Obviosuly I intend to try to get what I need done asap but wonder if anybody thinks I have a case to complain to the company as they are now sitting on my money until they receive this id.

Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.

buglawton

If I were a sceptical person, I would say that Foreign Currencies Direct makes no mention of anything that would discourage cash being deposited with them, but does make mention when that cash is ready (sorrowfully for them) to depart.

I''m being too paranoind, however in the current financial environment, anyone leaving large amounts of cash with anyone else needs to beware.

spinks

Well after a very stressful morning I have managed to get the docs certified and get FCD to action my funds transfer on fax copies rather than waiting until they receive the originals in the post.

Unfortunately FCD say this is the most they can do for me despite this being something they overlooked. They are trying to wriggle out of direct blame by saying the ID checks were mentioned in an email to me.

I have checked all correspondance and I have a 'Confirmation of New Account Details' email from their Money Laundering Support Officer stating
"I am pleased to confirm that your foreign exchange trading facility has been approved enabling us to process a credit line on your behalf with Foreign Currency Direct Plc. It is my pleasure to welcome you as a client by confirming your Account Reference and Manager."

The only other email that refers to ID checks states
"1) Funds received from parties other than the specific account holder, including joint accounts, may be subject to further ID checks in accordance with HMRC guidelines."

As this didn't apply to me and there was no direct request for further ID then I could only but assume this wasn't required.

I too am sceptical to the fact that if they are so concerned about money laundering legislations that they would be accepting money from somebody before they were happy with their identitiy.

The interest they are making on my money is probably a drop in the ocean to them but it makes you wonder if they are trying to hang on to every little drop for as long as possible.