Sending Money From UK to European (German) Bank Account

Harmonica89

Hi there,

Long story short, I'm looking to transfer roughly around £13000 to a German bank account with a decent exchage rate and low fees. Can anyone with any experiance advise the best way? My British bank account is with the Bank of Scotland. I have a Revolut account if this is an option?

I've been researching Currency Brokers but I find them pretty confusing and not sure how safe it is.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

DCFC79

Transferwise might be an option.

noh

Or a Starling account.

uptdale

Transferwise works pretty well.  Low fees and quick.  They can give you a "virtual" bank account in euros, so you can transfer pounds into that, and then make payments in euros as and when you want to.

colsten

Starling Bank, for such a large amount. They have FSCS protection. Transferwise does not. The rate/fee is roughly the same for both.

If FSCS doesn't matter, there are a number of currency transfer services which pay out more Euros: https://www.monito.com/send-money/united-kingdom/germany/gbp/eur/13000

There is also a £25 (or £50 is you are a business) cashback offer from Azimo: https://www.topcashback.co.uk/azimo-uk/ or https://www.quidco.com/azimo.  I have used them before, just to get the cashback. So might be worth sending £150 with Azimo, and the rest with e.g. InstaRem.

J_B

We use Currency Fair who charge a flat rate of £/€3 which may be better than Transferwise who I believe charge a %

colsten

J_B said:

We use Currency Fair who charge a flat rate of £/€3 which may be better than Transferwise who I believe charge a %

On £13,000, CurrencyFair pay 4 Euros more than Transferwise, and 42 Euros less than InstaRem.

None of them have FSCS cover.

[Deleted User]

FSCS protection would offer limited benefits if it's a one off transfer.

Doesn't Starling use the Transferwise? Western Union have been fairly competitive recently too. 

colsten

dahj said:

FSCS protection would offer limited benefits if it's a one off transfer.

Doesn't Starling use the Transferwise? Western Union have been fairly competitive recently too. 

FSCS could be the difference between losing £13,000 or keeping it. 

It’s Monzo, not Starling, who are using Transferwise. Western Union , like all currency transfer services, offer no FSCS protection

sausage_time

Anyone got any sense how how safe (or risky) TransferWise are?

colsten

They could be around forever, or they could go bust tomorrow. Who knows. I have used them in the past for small-ish GBP<->EUR amounts but since Starling have had a Euro account, there has been no real reason for me to use Transferwise any longer.