Advice to exchange a large amount of foreign cash (US dollar) into UK£

chicane92

Hi everyone,

I have recently returned home from working abroad for a year where I was paid in US dollars. As the exchange rate was diabolical this time last year I opted to be paid in cash, which has paid off as the exchange rate has drastically improved for my situation.

My problem now, however, is that I have $8500 in cash and it appears that the best way to transfer money would be an online transfer, but I am unable to get my currency into an account as I only hold sterling accounts in the UK.

Does anybody have a suggestion of the most financially beneficial way to exchange this cash into sterling?

From my own research Bureau de Change rates appear to be poor when you 'buy-back' and may not exchange my amount of money.

The Foreign Exchange Brokers I have looked at appear to be a purely online transaction between accounts which does not help me with my cash.

If it helps with advice I live in Leeds, I do have my payslips to verify the cash and I have a family member who lives in the USA if there is any way I could make use of that to get a good exchange rate.

Thank you very much for any advice!

benjus

Since you have the cash here in the UK with you now, I'd forget about trying to get it into a USD account, unless you know (and trust) someone with a UK-based USD account.

For changing cash:

http://travelmoney.moneysavingexpert.com/buy-back/u.s%20dollars/8500#results

Top result right now is Ace FX which would give you £5533. So they are taking a cut of about 0.5% on today's exchange rate which is about as good as most of the online bank-to-bank transfer companies.

You would need to pay about £30 for secure delivery of the cash (that's with Royal Mail Special Delivery in 3 batches - there might be cheaper options). So that takes the cut up to about 1% - still probably better than any other options (the Post Office charged about 10% for buying foreign currency last time I looked).

I work in Canary Wharf where Ace FX has two branches, so I can vouch for the company being genuine, although I haven't used their postal service.

Voyager2002

It is easy enough to open a UK-based dollar account (I know that Citibank and NatWest offer them, probably others) however I very much doubt whether they accept cash deposits in US dollars. It would be worth asking them.

If you really trust your relative in the USA and perhaps have plans to visit, you could ask her/him to pay the cash into her bank account there and then use an on-line transfer service.

benjus

Voyager2002 wrote: »

It is easy enough to open a UK-based dollar account (I know that Citibank and NatWest offer them, probably others) however I very much doubt whether they accept cash deposits in US dollars. It would be worth asking them.

If you really trust your relative in the USA and perhaps have plans to visit, you could ask her/him to pay the cash into her bank account there and then use an on-line transfer service.

I don't think it's worth it - the OP may end up £15 or so better off (compared to using Ace FX as described above) after all the hassle of opening a USD account or getting the money to the relative.