Overseas transfer of large funds

eezy1

Sorry not sure if this is the correct section for this

Basically there is a large amount of money in an overseas bank account in pakistan that needs to be transferred over to the UK in order to then be split between family members as part of an inheritance.

Could you give us some idea of the best route to take in order to do this? incurring minimal loss but through the safest means. The money is in excess of around £100,000

Thank you

agrinnall

The general advice is to use a repotable foreign exchange broker, for example fx.com (others are available, and I've never used any of them so this is not a recommendation).

However, I would expect that over £100K coming in from Pakistan is going to be held up for money laundering checks, which I would imagine are likely to be pretty thorough. So make sure you have all of your documentation available regarding provenance of the money to minimise the length of time the checks will take.

grumbler

eezy1 wrote: »

... incurring minimal loss but through the safest means....

These two requirements are contradictory. You can't satisfy both. Bank transfer is the safest, but the most expensive.

In fact I don't see many other options:
http://www.fxcompared.com/Content/money-transfer-from-Pakistan-UK-above-3000-amount-1000000

eezy1

agrinnall wrote: »

The general advice is to use a repotable foreign exchange broker, for example fx.com (others are available, and I've never used any of them so this is not a recommendation).

However, I would expect that over £100K coming in from Pakistan is going to be held up for money laundering checks, which I would imagine are likely to be pretty thorough. So make sure you have all of your documentation available regarding provenance of the money to minimise the length of time the checks will take.

Thank you agrinnall

Could you give me some idea of what charges are involved in transferring money overseas? Taxes and what have you? Are the charges on both sides

grumbler

If the transfer is not in ££ then a UK bank will charge you ~3% for the conversion. Possibly more for exotic currencies. Call the bank and ask them about the current exchange rate, then compare it to the interbank rate at http://www.oanda.com/currency/converter/
Some banks charge a small flat fee for incoming transfers.

On the other side I'd expect £25-£50 flat fee for the transfer.

Re taxes ask on Cutting Tax board.

Archi_Bald

There won't be any tax to pay simply for receiving the money in the UK. But if you earn any interest on it, you will then have to pay tax on the interest. If you are in receipt of benefits, they could also be affected by receiving the money.

As to rules and regulations in Pakistan, also regarding inheritance laws, you would need to ask someone who is familiar with them. May be try UBL? http://www.ubluk.com/about-us/

jonesMUFCforever

If you are the recipient then the only charge you face is whatever your bank charges for incoming foreign transfers - Lloyds charges up to £12.

It is up to the sender to decide whether they send in Pakistani currency or sterling.

baby_frogmella

Use HSBC's Global View system to get great exchange rates (very close to the mid-market rates) very low fees and almost instant transfers from pakistan to UK all for a fee of PKR 599 - around a fiver. You need a bog standard HSBC current account in UK and a HSBC Advance current account in Pakistan. You then link both accounts in HSBC's internet banking system (in either country) and are able to freely make transfers between the 2 online. Though i suspect for a transfer of £100k you would have to call them up. Well worth opening HSBC accounts in both countries just to save a shed load of fees. I regularly do this between my UAE and UK HSBC accounts and have saved quite a bit v standard transfers.
http://www.expat.hsbc.com/1/2/hsbc-expat/why-hsbc-expat/internet-banking/faqs#globalviewcountries