Paid US$ into UK Bank account.

digitraveller

Hey,

So, I am a freelancer and have a few new clients who are from the US, and insist on paying in US$. They are large companies so don't want to force them to pay in UK£. I am with the Nationwide and wondered the best way to deal with this.

They will transfer the money into my UK bank account, what costs could I expect to pay for this, couldn't find anything on Nationwide website.

With all the talk of the pound crashing, it concerns me. I am assuming I will be worse off if the pound crashes or will I be better off, all this confuses me.

Any thoughts on the best way to do this without losing a ton of money?

Thanks :beer:

xylophone

Forget Nationwide and open a dollar account with another provider?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5767152/best-euro-international-bank-accounts

eskbanker

digitraveller wrote: »

With all the talk of the pound crashing, it concerns me. I am assuming I will be worse off if the pound crashes or will I be better off, all this confuses me.

If the pound loses value against the dollar, then being paid in dollars works in your favour when converting back to sterling....

londoninvestor

Another very similar forum discussion: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5877940/uk-resident-going-to-be-paid-in-usd

[Deleted User]

There’s many many post of this nature on here.

It’s either the same person or people don’t know how to use the search box

Tallaght

OP is this anything to do with crypto currency ?

PRAISETHESUN

You're probably better off using a specialist service for receiving foreign currency - most high street banks will do it, but charge you an arm and a leg for the privilege. A Revolut USD account or the Transferwise Borderless account would be my two recommendations - they give good exchange rates when converting the USD back to GBP.

As for how the exchange rates will move over Brexit - its anyone's guess at this point. If the pound were to fall your USD would be worth more when converted back to GBP...

Butch_Dingle

OP,
The Multicurrencies account from Fineco bank (Italy based) is arguably your best solution. Once you open an account you will have multiple accounts in GBP/USD/EUR/CHF showing simultaneously. Their exchange rates are superb, very close to the mid-market rates and even better than Transferwise. They have zero fees on incoming payments into any of their accounts. However when they send payments to any UK bank account, they send the payment by SWIFT for which most UK banks charge for. Though Nationwide and Starling don't charge for incoming SWIFT payments in GBP so you'll be ok.

USD >> Fineco USD account >>> Exchange from Fineco USD into Fineco GBP >>> Send Fineco GBP funds to UK bank account (Nationwide)

https://finecobank.com/uk

TomPucci85

As above, I highly recommend using Revolut.

You can get set up in 5 minutes, and open a USD wallet within the app. Just hold the dollars in there, and when you do want to convert to GBP, it's done instantly in app on the interbank exchange rate without fees

pochisoldi

TomPucci85 wrote: »

As above, I highly recommend using Revolut.

You can get set up in 5 minutes, and open a USD wallet within the app. Just hold the dollars in there, and when you do want to convert to GBP, it's done instantly in app on the interbank exchange rate without fees

You might be able to hold USD in a Revolut account, but how does an American company pay money into the account? Does the account have an ABA routing number? (=US sort code). Do Revolut belong to ACH?

PochiSoldi

londoninvestor

pochisoldi wrote: »

You might be able to hold USD in a Revolut account, but how does an American company pay money into the account? Does the account have an ABA routing number? (=US sort code). Do Revolut belong to ACH?

PochiSoldi

I think the current state of play with Revolut (unless it's changed in the last couple of months) is that they can pay dollars out using ACH via a third party (CurrencyCloud), but not receive them in. (Whereas with Transferwise you can receive dollars through ACH.)

So with Revolut you may end up paying SWIFT charges on the dollars as they flow from your clients to Revolut. With Transferwise you can use ACH, which is usually fee-free (roughly like Faster Payments in the UK.)