Making an international payment

katies_mum

Hello, please can anyone help?  I want to make an international payment from either Santander or First Direct (approx £180) to a bank in Vietnam, for a hotel deposit.   When logging into our accounts the country is showing as Vietnam but Vietnamese Dong is not an option to select under the currency.  We appreciate there will be charges for doing this but don`t want to incur additional charges if various currencies have to used.  Has anyone done this type of transaction please and how did you did you do it?   Thank you so much x

eskbanker

If payment by card isn't an option, then bank-to-bank transfers will be most cost-effective via a currency broker:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/foreign-currency-exchange/

https://www.monito.com/en/compare/transfer/gb/vn/gbp/vnd/180

katies_mum

Thank you for taking the time to reply will have a look at your links.  My daughter is going to ring First Direct tomorrow to see if there is an option but as the Vietnamese Dong isn`t shown in the list I`m assuming its going to be a no.  In the past I have always paid any deposit by card so assumed this would be the same.

Not heard of a currency broker before so thank you.  

la531983

This will bring up all sorts of red flags. Why cant they accept a debit or credit card payment, its not an unusually large sum of money.

DullGreyGuy

Wise also support Vietnam https://wise.com/gb/blog/vietnam-welcome-to-transferwise transfers

With any form of cash transfer you have no comeback if it turns out it's a scammer or the hotel doesn't exist etc. It's unusual for a place not to accept cards unless it's a small hostel or such but hopefully you've done all your homework before sending them the monies. 

katies_mum

Thank you all for replying, It is a genuine hotel, they asked last night for a deposit and gave all their bank information we didn`t think there would be any problems just making a transfer via internet banking but as I have now realised its not that straight forward.  In the past have just used our credit card to make these types of payments.

Thanks DullGreyGuy, I have never heard of Wise until yesterday but if we cannot use our credit card it might have to be the route we go.  The remainder of our balance will be paid in cash when we get there!