Moving savings from EU to the UK: cheap and reliable way?

concernedSaver

Hi everyone,

I moved in the UK from a European country a while ago, but only recently decided to settle in and start considering to buy a property. In order to do this, I'm looking to transfer my old savings (about 20.000EUR) from my European bank to my British bank.

So far I've only ever transferred smaller amounts of money using Transferwise, but I'm not sure if I can trust the platform to move a bigger amount of money. Making a SEPA transfer will be expensive and it's hard to get an idea of what the fee would actually be.

Browsing the forum and the guides it seems that a FX broker like Currencies Direct could be the way to go, but I don't have any experiences with them. Any advice?

Futuristic

Transferwise is fine for that sort of amount. I've sent more abroad and have been using them for about a year.

concernedSaver

Transferwise is fine for that sort of amount.

Good to know. However, from what I see they're *authorised* by the FCA, does this mean that with them I have the same safety I would have with other "bigger" FX brokers?

colsten

Define bigger, and why do you feel Transferwise is not part of those bigger ones?

No currency transfer service of any size offers any guarantees like the ones you can get with banks.

You can contain your risk by making several smaller transfers.

grumbler

concernedSaver wrote: »

Good to know. However, from what I see they're *authorised* by the FCA, does this mean that with them I have the same safety I would have with other "bigger" FX brokers?

What exactly 'safety' do you expect that results from FSA authorisation?

For other companies see
http://www.mycurrencytransfer.com/money-transfer-to-UK/20000-EUR
https://www.fxcompared.com/money-transfer/France-UK?amount=20000&bType=1&aDir=0&ref=filter

Currencyfair is worth checking too.

Anthorn

Within the E.U., S.E.P.A. (Single European Payments Area) transfer between banks is the safest for that amount of money. Other services not operated directly by banks are cheaper but there are no guarantees.

Bona Fide banks may offer national compensation schemes such as F.S.C.S. in U.K. and similar schemes in other countries.

concernedSaver

Thanks for the replies and the advice guys, much appreciated. Since there is no particular difference between Transferwise and other FX brokers, I'd go with TW since I already trusted them enough to move smaller amounts of money, and just move smaller amounts each time to minimise risks.

Other services not operated directly by banks are cheaper but there are no guarantees.

I understand that there is some guarantee, namely that the registered brokers are required to keep the customer money separate from their own, so it's actually possible to recover them in the extreme case they go bust. Is that correct? Not that the amount is so large to justify this concern, I just want to know more about this and move on to actually look for a decent savings account to put them on.

grumbler

concernedSaver wrote: »

I understand that there is some guarantee, namely that the registered brokers are required to keep the customer money separate from their own, so it's actually possible to recover them in the extreme case they go bust. Is that correct?

I think this 'separation' is red herring and provides almost no protection.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/tag/Crown_Currency_Exchange

concernedSaver

I think this 'separation' is red herring and provides almost no protection.

That's actually really interesting to read, didn't know about that. Thanks!

Anthorn

A new one on me and only discovered because my withdrawal of funds from my now defunct Revolut account was, according to my bank statement, processed by The Currency Cloud.

Probably only for businesses:.currencycloud.com

kekvirag

I am actually in the exact same situation as the OP. I was checking out money transfering services and CurrencyFair seems to be the best regarding the cost on this amount of money. I was just curious what service provider you went with at the end and what was your experience with them?