Sending euros?

Yellow_mango

I’m on holiday in France. So far we’ve been happily paying for things using a Starling card. All good. However we need to pay an invoice (around €200) at the place we’re staying. They don’t have a card reader, and suggested bank transfer. Looking in my Starling app I think there’ll be a charge of around £6 to send payment in euros unless I’m missing something?

I also have current accounts with Barclays, TSB and HSBC I could potentially use. Will any of these offer efficient Euro payment? Or shall we just drive to the cash machine?

londoninvestor

Probably the cheapest and quickest way would be:
1) open the Starling euro account - that can be readily done within the app I think
2) fund it with €200 by converting from your Starling £ account (there's no charge for that before 1st Sept)
3) then make the bank transfer from your Starling euro account

Bank transfer gives you less protection than paying by card, but presumably not a big issue if you're already staying in the place and are happy with it!

LobsterMemory

There seem to be 2 types of transfer with Starling

One costs about £6 as you've seen

Use the other one, it's about 50p

Yellow_mango

Thank you! So close and almost perfect - EUR account was very fast to set up. But unfortunately they appear to be closed to conversions for the weekend. Trip to the cash machine it is!