Wire Transfer from ETrade (US) to UK, can someone help please?

OldFella_2

Hi all, as far as my addled brain can tell this is my first post on this forum, so I hope I am doing everything right.


I am desperate for some advice on how I can successfully set up a wire transfer instruction from an e*trade account I have to send funds to my bank in the UK.


It appears that very recently, the rules on wire transfers were tightened to check that the sending account name and the recipient account name match.



Changing my e*trade account name seems fraught with difficulty, so I figured it would be more straightforward to set up a new account with Halifax (where I bank already) with the name to my specification (ie to exactly match my e*trade account name).



Not straightforward at all! Some test transfers between existing accounts and this new one reveal the account name is still the original account name! There seems no way to actually set the name to what I want it to be.



I would very much appreciate any help any of you good people can provide, especially if you have managed to do this or even managed a successful wire transfer from e*trade to a UK bank very recently.


Yours in hope,


OF

Voyager2002

Firstly, you would lose on the exchange rate if you have a wire transfer in US dollars sent to a UK bank account. You need to open an account to receive the funds: the option that I would use is a multi-currency account with Fineco Bank, but it might be simpler to use a currency broker such as Transferwise. Set up the account so that your name is exactly the same as with your US broker (presumably you still have identification in this name, otherwise you have more problems).

OldFella_2

Thanks for your reply, yes I was looking at potentially using TorFX but was unsure how to set that up in the e*Trade wire instruction as for UK they need IBANs, BICs, SWIFT codes and all manner of other things to be recorded.


I shall look into Fineco, Transferwise etc, so thanks for those.


OF

OldFella_2

Just a quick follow-up, I've bitten the bullet and signed up with TransferWise and availed myself of a 'borderless account'. I am now in the process of getting that verified with ET and hopefully this should get me a result.


Thanks again,


OF

londoninvestor

OldFella wrote: »

Just a quick follow-up, I've bitten the bullet and signed up with TransferWise and availed myself of a 'borderless account'. I am now in the process of getting that verified with ET and hopefully this should get me a result.


Thanks again,


OF

Transferwise Borderless can accept US domestic payments using ACH (roughly the US equivalent of Faster Payments). Can E*Trade send the money using that rather than a wire transfer? It's likely to be fee-free that way.

OldFella_2

londoninvestor wrote: »

Transferwise Borderless can accept US domestic payments using ACH (roughly the US equivalent of Faster Payments). Can E*Trade send the money using that rather than a wire transfer? It's likely to be fee-free that way.

Thanks for the reply, yes it seems that setting up the US$ balance generated routing codes and an account number so I've tried using those to set up a non-wire external account in ET. Still needs to be verified, but if it comes off then yes we could well be in business!

Cheers,

OF

AnotherJoe

A bit late now but I've wired from eTrade to a UK bank (Santander) without any issues and i did that because my main bank account (not Santander) is joint and thus has a different name to my etrade account. (though they will and have accepted fax transfers in that case but thats a lot of hassle as well)

Seems your issue was to use a bank you already had a relationship with rather than one where you could start with a clean slate and nothing to muddy the waters on your account name.

Would appreciate it if you let us know how you get on with the transfer company, and what the savings were maybe I'll look at that for my post April 5 next sell (I'm gradually burning down my US based shares to get rid of the hassle)

OldFella_2

Thanks, and yes I will definitely feed back on the success or otherwise of my quest.

guli

Whilst Transferwise used to work, from this new year they require your wire transfer into the US account to be prefixed with "Transferwise FBO" then your name.



Won't work if etrade requires the wire transfer to be in your name as in your etrade account.


**

Today we're adding 'TransferWise FBO' before your account holder name. This will make it easier for us to deliver your money.

You'll need to let some people know.

On January 1, we'll start rejecting payments if the sender doesn't use the new name, 'TransferWise FBO First Name Last Name'.

OldFella_2

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I was a bit disappointed at that news, however it may be that I can avoid actual wire transfers by setting up my TW US$ balance on ET as a normal external ACH type account. If I am successful, the name on the account will no longer matter. If not... well, back to the drawing board I guess.

guli

Oldfella,


Please let me know how you get on regarding setting up via ACH route


THanks