European Bank Transfers (Euro BACS)

ikr2

I'm scratching my head a bit here. In 2003 the EU made direct bank transfers under EUR 12,500 free between countries with the Euro as their currency.

I thought this meant that some UK banks also provided this service free. In fact I received an auction payment from The Netherlands and was not charged. The seller never mentioned any charges at his end.

Now I am trying to buy an auction for EUR 10 from a German seller. But my current account providers Smile, Lloyds and Natwest all say they want to charge me between £7 and £18 to send the money. SMile say that some UK Banks have signed up to the so-called EuroBACS scheme and do free transfers. But whoever they are is a very well kept secret.

Can anyone shed any light on this? To keep the seller happy I am sending him the EUR 10 in cash.

Graham1

The EU didn't make it 'free' they specified that banks couldn't charge more for cross border euro transfer (within EU) than for national euro transfers. And the directive applies to countries like the UK which don't use the Euro as their national currency.

This is why all the U.K banks have withdrawn euro bacs from their customers and only offer (same day expensive) euro chaps and international swift - so they can offer national and EU cross border transfers at the 'same' (i.e. high costs).

dchurch24

IMHO, this is outragous. Someone should remind the banks/govt that this is the 21st century, and we live in a 'global community'.
I bet if Bill Gates or Paul Mcartney wanted to move some money to HK or Switzerland it would happen in minutes and most likely with no cost.