USD to GBP bad exchange rate avoidance

Anthorn

I didn't know there was a business side to Revolut. But not really surprising that this thread has turned into a promotion of it as several other threads have done. By now it's just boring.

If a prepaid card is wanted or cannot be avoided, Soldo has recently introduced their Soldo Business account which is quite comprehensive but only open to U.K. registered businesses. Here I link to the pricing page because that will be a major consideration.
https://business.soldo.com/en-uk/b/pricing/

But personally, I would not entrust my company funds to any prepaid card. It would have to be a bank with all the guarantees and safeguards that banks offer. For example Lloyds Bank International have a USD account and HSBC have an international bank account for 14 different currencies.

AviatorEGHH

I quite agree. I don't need any form of payment ability for foreign payments because i use a 'Supercard'.

All I need is a way of receiving and exchanging US dollar payments before final payment into my UK GBP business account. I need this simply because direct payments into my UK GBP account with US dollars is extortionate and the exchange rates are a joke.

grumbler

Anthorn wrote: »

I...But personally, I would not entrust my company funds to any prepaid card. It would have to be a bank with all the guarantees and safeguards that banks offer.

What guaranties and safeguards do they offer to businesses?

FCSC "was set up mainly to assist private individuals, although large businesses and small local authorities (such as parish councils) are also covered".

This is a genuine question.

brianposter

Are the payments large enough to consider an Interactive Brokers account ?

Anthorn

grumbler wrote: »

What guaranties and safeguards do they offer to businesses?

FCSC "was set up mainly to assist private individuals, although large businesses and small local authorities (such as parish councils) are also covered".

This is a genuine question.

My genuine answer is you answered your own question. But you misquoted the information from FSCS which makes your post untrue. For "businesses" you substituted "large businesses". Here it is and the link to it:

Is a business covered if the bank or building society it holds money with fails?
FSCS was set up mainly to assist private individuals, although businesses and small local authorities (such as parish councils) are also covered.

https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/questions-and-answers/qas-about-deposits/

Anything else?

eDicky

AviatorEGHH wrote: »

There isn't actually much info on the Business side of Revolut yet, however if the business accounts run similarly to the personal accounts, it seems you can only transfer to your Revolut account from another account in your own name. Therefore I still wont be able to receive payments to my Revolut account from a third party (ie.contractor), meaning I still have to have another USD account somewhere in order to be able to exchange.

Hopefully Revolut will address this problem on the Business accounts.

I was not thinking of your receiving the USD payments directly to Revolut, but for converting the USD to GBP if it will be fee-free or at least cheaper than using TransferWise.

Revolut say that they are going to provide personal IBANs for receiving EUR and USD, in addition to the personal sort code and account number that they recently started providing for GBP payments to and from third parties. So the facility to receive USD payments from others may indeed come with the business account, but don't hold your breath, they've been offering the 'pre-registration' for quite some time already.

AviatorEGHH

Thanks everybody for the thoughts and ideas.

As it turns out, changing business bank accounts to Barclays from Lloyds solves all my issues.

Barclays have USD business current accounts and very good rates for transfers (free to UK sort codes even for USD transfers) They have internet banking for USD accounts too so everything can be done online. At Lloyds I would have to go into branch to make a 3rd party transfer from my USD account and pay £20 for the privilege.

Sorry Lloyds, I won't be contributing to your bankers bonuses anymore...

bigadaj

AviatorEGHH wrote: »

Thanks everybody for the thoughts and ideas.

As it turns out, changing business bank accounts to Barclays from Lloyds solves all my issues.

Barclays have USD business current accounts and very good rates for transfers (free to UK sort codes even for USD transfers) They have internet banking for USD accounts too so everything can be done online. At Lloyds I would have to go into branch to make a 3rd party transfer from my USD account and pay £20 for the privilege.

Sorry Lloyds, I won't be contributing to your bankers bonuses anymore...

Barclays bonuses were frequently far higher....

AviatorEGHH

As long as they're not using me to sponsor them I don't really care!

grumbler

Anthorn wrote: »

...you misquoted the information from FSCS which makes your post untrue. For "businesses" you substituted "large businesses".

I haven't misquoted and/or substituted anything

Here it is and the link to it:

https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/questions-and-answers/qas-about-deposits/

Here is the link to my quote that was 100% accurate:
https://www.fscs.org.uk/what-we-cover/eligibility-rules/

I don't think that 'questions and answers' are more trustworthy than 'eligibility rules'.

Anything else?

If you want to blame anyone for misquoting and substituting, blame FSCS for misquoting themselves.

ETA: I was unable to reply as was temporarily banned by MSE police for the alleged "rudeness or abuse towards ... staff or volunteers at MSE".