Euros payment from UK to Belgium - cheap/free fee?

FabFifty

Hi guys
I need to transfer money from a UK bank account to a Belgium bank account (must be in Euros) to pay for an event. Santander want to charge £25 to do this for me. Is there anyway I can do this myself at a lower rate, or even fee-free?
Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Ben8282

No doubt you will be advised to open Starling, Revoult, Travelwise etc accounts but if this is a one off is it really worth the bother? Just pay the fee and be done with it. If it goes from your bank account to the other bank account you will know it will all go through without any problems.

colsten

Whatever method you use, only send any money if you are certain the recipient isn't a scammer. I would always use something like Transferwise or Starling myself, not a traditional bank. The £25 Santander want is just the tip of the iceberg - - they will also almost certainly give you a rotten exchange rate.

EDIT: Check out Quidco and Topcashback. They have nice cashback offers for Azimo and WorldRemit. You can check how their rates compare with Transferwise etc. on https://www.fxcompared.com/. They are most likely not quite as keen but the cashback will make it worth your while. I have used both of them, they get the money into the target account within a couple of working days. The cashback will take a few months to be paid.

If you don't have a Quidco or TCB account yet, check the referrer's board for some more money to be made........

DCFC79

Are you likely yo go abroad at some point next year ?
If so open up Monzo, Starling or Revolut.

colsten

DCFC79 wrote: »

Are you likely yo go abroad at some point next year ?
If so open up Monzo, Starling or Revolut.

These accounts are good for travelling and regular sending/receiving Euros but not a good reason for passing on the cashback offers.

Having said this, Revolut doesn't have FSCS protection, so they are quite as good as Starling or Monzo.

sal_III

Ben8282 wrote: »

No doubt you will be advised to open Starling, Revoult, Travelwise etc accounts but if this is a one off is it really worth the bother? Just pay the fee and be done with it. If it goes from your bank account to the other bank account you will know it will all go through without any problems.

And for good reason, this is MSE. Your advise is to throw away £25 and unknown amount on crap exchange rates, vs. spending 10min in an app on your phone, that will be available for future use.

The least painful way is to get Transferwise account - you don't need to order cards etc. Just load the GBP from your UK current account, convert it to Euro on the cheap and transfer it for free to the Belgian Euro account.

colsten

sal_III wrote: »

And for good reason, this is MSE. Your advise is to throw away £25 and unknown amount on crap exchange rates, vs. spending 10min in an app on your phone, that will be available for future use.

The least painful way is to get Transferwise account - you don't need to order cards etc. Just load the GBP from your UK current account, convert it to Euro on the cheap and transfer it for free to the Belgian Euro account.

So after giving good MSE advice about not throwing £25 away, you then immediately proceed to suggest the OP throw away the Azimo/WorldRemit cashback, and use Transferwise - - - which, when I last checked, would offer a worse deal than Azimo for transferring money to Belgium.

sal_III

colsten wrote: »

So after giving good MSE advice about not throwing £25 away, you then immediately proceed to suggest the OP throw away the Azimo/WorldRemit cashback, and use Transferwise - - - which, when I last checked, would offer a worse deal than Azimo for transferring money to Belgium.

I can't advise someone to use services that don't have personal experience with. Your suggestion of WorldRemit is based on the cashback covering the higher transfer/conversion fees. Without knowing the amount you can't be sure they are the better option.

greyteam1959

And cashback is not always guaranteed...............

FabFifty

Thank you all for your suggestions. And, colsten, thank you for the scam warning (definitely not a scam - it's a specialist vehicle event in Belgium that's been running for many years).

colsten

sal_III wrote: »

I can't advise someone to use services that don't have personal experience with. Your suggestion of WorldRemit is based on the cashback covering the higher transfer/conversion fees. Without knowing the amount you can't be sure they are the better option.

You are making a number of assumptions, all of which are false. Also, you not having personal experience with an offering doesn't mean that those offerings have no merit.

Whether provider x (who you have no experience with) has better rates than provider y (who you do have experience with) is not a matter of your experience but a matter of comparing their current offerings.

greyteam1959 wrote: »

And cashback is not always guaranteed...............

That is very true. Do you have any evidence though that Azimo / WorldRemit won't pay up? And do you have evidence that Transferwise offers the best deal right now for Euro transfers?

As an aside, I have accounts with, and have made many money transfers with, Transferwise, Azimo, WorldRemit, Starling, Monzo and Revolut, and I use Quidco, Topcashback or HUKD wherever possible. My accrued cashback total, over 13 years, is £12,492. Yours?