LLoyds exchange fee

anapiu

jon81uk said:

anapiu said:

I did ask the staff for fees or costs. I was expecting to lose some money, but not that much. I believe I should have been informed about this rate.

The answer to are there any fees or costs is still no.
The question you didn't ask is what exchange rate will be used.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't use the correct wording. For me it's a cost.

anapiu

born_again said:

anapiu said:

No. I worked it out. XE minus what I have actually received on my account.

Exchange rate is calculated at time of transfer. So if you calculated it before or after there can be a difference. Banks rates are never the best.
Also you may incur a fee for sending from the other bank.

The other bank charged me some money too, but they have informed me.

grumbler

All fees have to be clearly shown in the statement.

For conversion they use their own rate that you didn't ask about.  It's not a fee. Very few banks use rate very close to the interbank rate that you probably based your expectations on. The conversion could be made at the sending bank - in this case you would have received  exactly the amount you sent, but the cost of conversion was unlikely to differ much.

Before transferring big amount of money it was worth doing some better research. E.g. MSE:

Send money abroad: Cheap currency transfers - MoneySavingExpert

anapiu

worth doing some better research - I went to the bank? Is there any better research than this?

grumbler

anapiu said:

worth doing some better research - I went to the bank? Is there any better research than this?

Yes. You have to know what questions to ask.

Did you ask them, say, what £ amount you would receive if you send €30,000?

You asked about fees and received a correct answer.

Marchitiello

@anapiu you should have simply come on this forum before hand and research the subject… we have numerous thread covering this very subject, most recently one was named something like “best way to receive Euro”.

high street bank simply apply terrible exchange rate and comparing it to mid market rates shown on XE was naive at best.. those rates do not include margin that will be applied by the institution (some will build it in the rate, others as a separate fee)

currency conversion services such as Wise are often recommended (they apply fee for conversions separately from the exchange rate shown, but the net amount converted would have been much better then Lloyds or any of the high street bank. Starling Bank Euro account and then converting it to GBP, also with a fee, would have still being better Then the rate given by any High Street Bank. My own experience is getting best conversion net amount via Fineco UK multi currency account, but that route is a bit slow so if urgency was a factor, not suitable.

at the end of the day, the Branch staff advice was correct in so far that there are no fee for receiving foreign payment, and could not be expected to tell you that their rates were terrible though.

as a point of reference, €27,000 right now with wise would have given you £23,448.25 (including about £127 fee), with Fineco £23,487.30 (no additional fee). XE is quoting a theoretical exchange of £23,560.94 

Marchitiello

anapiu said:

worth doing some better research - I went to the bank? Is there any better research than this?

I think you are implying that you sent the money from a Euro account you own. Have you asked the option to the sending bank to send the money in GBP? If they did, they would have equally applied a terrible exchange rate on top of the fee they have already charged you, and you would have received the exact money sent into your Lloyds account, as they correctly informed you, they would not apply additional fee.

in one of the business I was involved with about 20 years ago, before the era of services like Wise or multi currency accounts like Fineco, we did a lot of international trade and insisted that the customers would send us the money in GBP, all fee paid at origin, so that we would know what money were delivered into our account.

anapiu

This is what I don't get...Transfer wise calls it a fee as well!

Marchitiello

anapiu said:

This is what I don't get...Transfer wise calls it a fee as well!

I and other have explained to you that some business charge it as a fee (and show exchange rates closed to mid market rate shown on XE) or build it in the exchange rate (if you compare the exchange rate shown on Fineco va Wise it would look worst, but the net amount converted would be better as Fineco does not add additional fee, just build their margin into the exchange rate, is nothing harder to get, you cannot ask all bank or currency services to operate in the same way it suit your own understanding.. Bureau de Change operating near Paddington, London, one next to another, have similar differences, one showing you net amount converted, others showing you rates plus fee..

you have been naive in believing XE mid market rate would have been the reference.. XE own website as the option to use them to exchange currency and will apply a fee on top of it.

anapiu

Grrr! Next time I'll ask them fees, costs or rates then... If I don't know what to ask, I think fees or costs covers everything, apparently it doesn't.