Sending money abroad - £pound to Euro

TheSkints

Hi all. Firstly I hope this is in the appropriate thread....

I need to send (at the least) monthly payments from a UK bank (in £ sterling) to a Spanish account (Euros - in Spain - but not my own - it's to pay bills to a company).

The UK banks that I could use charge £25 (Santander) and £30 (HSBC) and that's even before any charges for currency conversion and/or the charges made by the other end.

I'm just wondering if there is a better (and of course cheaper) way to do this rather than bank to bank transfer. As of course those charges are ridiculously high and might actually double the bill in some cases. I did have a quick check around - but these kinds of things are changing all the time (for example Santander used to be 'free' up until sometime late last year). Thanks.

grumbler

MSE:
Sending Money Abroad
Discussion: Sending Money Abroad


https://www.fxcompared.com/money-transfer/UK-Spain?amount=1000&bType=1&aDir=0&ref=filter
http://www.mycurrencytransfer.com/money-transfer-to-Spain/1000-GBP

lexia

Currency brokers are great, you just need to find the one that works for your currency & country pairs. You need to check with the brokers: potential intermediary bank fees and charges at the sending & receiving end.

In my case there's no charge for monthly transfers (no transfer fees, no sending/receiving) - but I'm doing Canada CAD to UK GBP, using ukforex.co.uk.

Ukforex draws CAD by direct debit from my Canadian account, and they send GBP to my UK account. Whatever exchange rate they quote me, that's what I get in my UK account. (transfer fee is waived for monthly transfers)

TheSkints

lexia wrote: »

Currency brokers are great, you just need to find the one that works for your currency & country pairs. You need to check with the brokers: potential intermediary bank fees and charges at the sending & receiving end.

What is a currency broker? Companies as listed in the link here?

eDicky

TheSkints wrote: »

What is a currency broker? Companies as listed in the link here?

Yes, as in Grumbler's links. Brokers, transfer services, remittance agents, call them what you will. They have facilities to receive your funds by Faster Payments or BACS in the UK without bank charges, convert the currency at decent or perfect rates, then deposit to the target account in a way that avoids any bank fees at that end. So you can avoid the charges and bad exchange rates imposed by banks, much to their displeasure!

Currently TranferWise and CurrencyFair seem to be highly regarded. The former gives the perfect mid-market rate at the moment of transfer with a 0.5% fee (to euro); the latter puts a slight spread on the rate, with no fee.

Marcio45

Strange, theskints,
i also have an hsbc account and have been sending transfers to euro countries for only £4, sometimes even free when a promotional deal is on.
Recently i sarted using transferwise, and the cost of transfer is 0,5% of the amount you are sending. But transferwise give you a much better exchange rate.
both of them, if sent early in the morning (before 9am) arrive at the destination account later that day.

TheSkints

Marcio45 wrote: »

Strange, theskints,
i also have an hsbc account and have been sending transfers to euro countries for only £4, sometimes even free when a promotional deal is on.
Recently i sarted using transferwise, and the cost of transfer is 0,5% of the amount you are sending. But transferwise give you a much better exchange rate.
both of them, if sent early in the morning (before 9am) arrive at the destination account later that day.

Yes. I did look at that initially as it said "£4", but the small print as always is unclear:
How much will it cost?:


HSBC Bank (UK) Payment fees:

HSBC Bank (UK) Payment fees

HSBC to HSBC £0 £0 £0

HSBC to any other bank £4 - £9*1 (For Worldpay country payments)
£30*2 (For all other payments)

£9*1 (For Worldpay country payments) -£30*2 (For all other payments)

*1 International Payments sent in local currency (up to the equivalent of £2,000) to any one of the following Worldpay countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and United States.


*2 International Payments which do not meet the criteria set out in (*1)
For all International Payments, the beneficiary's bank, and any foreign bank we may use to send the payment, may also take a charge. You'll only have to pay these charges if you choose 'sender to pay all charges' when you request your payment.


Beneficiary banks may charge for receiving international payments. Unless you are sending money in an EEA currency to an EEA country, charges may also be applied by other banks used to send the payment. These charges are not within our control and may be deducted from the payment.

---

Formatting here is a bit off. Here's the link
http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/international-money-transfer/details


EDIT: Perhaps it is a £4 charge not £30?

Maybe they make most of their money during the exchange rate. At the time of writing the HSBC rate is 1.273e to the £. Market rate says 1.32 to the £.

So that's quite a big difference if you're sending a large amount.

TheSkints

eDicky wrote: »

Yes, as in Grumbler's links. Brokers, transfer services, remittance agents, call them what you will. They have facilities to receive your funds by Faster Payments or BACS in the UK without bank charges, convert the currency at decent or perfect rates, then deposit to the target account in a way that avoids any bank fees at that end. So you can avoid the charges and bad exchange rates imposed by banks, much to their displeasure!

Currently TranferWise and CurrencyFair seem to be highly regarded. The former gives the perfect mid-market rate at the moment of transfer with a 0.5% fee (to euro); the latter puts a slight spread on the rate, with no fee.

Is it normal practice for them to request your details and have an agent call you back? As that's certainly something to consider if it's all above board.

I've never done this before and so am currently still of the opinion of the stereotypical scammer using 'Western Union' to fleece people in some way, so obviously I'm a bit apprehensive.
Think PhoneJacker.....

mgdavid

I'm a Currencyfair.com user, have been for a couple of years, quite a few transactions, some small ones, a couple for a few hundred, and a couple more for tens of thousands of pounds. The account is all set up by you online, as are all the transactions in and out, and currency exchanges. You control it every step of the way. Your money is only with them for maybe an hour - just as long as it takes for you to see the email that says your funds have arrived, and for you to exchange them and do the onward transfer to wherever you're sending it. The charge is 3 Euros, and their exchange rate spread is tiny, far better than the banks.
HTH

TheSkints

mgdavid wrote: »

I'm a Currencyfair.com user, have been for a couple of years, quite a few transactions, some small ones, a couple for a few hundred, and a couple more for tens of thousands of pounds. The account is all set up by you online, as are all the transactions in and out, and currency exchanges. You control it every step of the way. Your money is only with them for maybe an hour - just as long as it takes for you to see the

Funnily enough I'm just on the comparison site now reading through the 'top' ones.

I take it your transfers are from one currency to another. I don't really understand what the "Local Settlement" means.....as for Currencyfair it states UK. But others say Worldwide or have a list of countries.

Their exchange rate is certainly the best - even including the minimal 3e charge. I'm definitely going to use a broker. The banks exchange rates are simply awful.

grumbler

I guess 'local settlement' means that no international transfer is involved/needed.
E.g. some UK brokers don't have a bank account in the country in question and a customer either have to pay for an international transfer when sending money either to UK or from UK.