cashing a cheque in $US - where's best

bitsandpieces

I'm getting paid for a few months work in $US - so trying to decide how best to cash the cheque (I live in the UK - and aren't planning any long visit to the US or anything - so need £s not $s. Any idea on how to get the most for my money? I have Co-op Bank, Nationwide and Egg accounts, or if I'll get a much better deal by going elsewhere I could look into that... Thanks in advance.

jonesMUFCforever

A bank will need you to have an account before negotiating/collecting proceeds of a foreign cheque.
This narrows it down a bit for you as Egg probably won't offer this facility.

IMO if at all possible it would be much easier and cheaper for you if you could get the money electronically sent to your nominated account instead of issuing a cheque.

dcristo

You pay a small fee to have the international check deposited with whatever bank you use.

JPizzle

You could open a Citibank account, either a Citigold or Plus (Plus is £10 a month), or alternatively, open any Citi account and have more than £2000 in it, and you can then cash cheques in dollars for free using the US Dollar current account.

Otherwise it costs $20 per month

dcristo

JPizzle wrote: »

You could open a Citibank account, either a Citigold or Plus (Plus is £10 a month), or alternatively, open any Citi account and have more than £2000 in it, and you can then cash cheques in dollars for free using the US Dollar current account.

Otherwise it costs $20 per month

huh? the fee is for depositing each check, not on a monthly basis.

JPizzle

dcristo wrote: »

huh? the fee is for depositing each check, not on a monthly basis.

To quote Citibank's website: "Otherwise, a monthly service charge of $20 or €20 will be levied."

bitsandpieces

Thanks - will have a word with co-op and nationwide. Assuming their fees aren't OTT, probably not worth setting up a citibank account for a single cheque...

dcristo

JPizzle wrote: »

To quote Citibank's website: "Otherwise, a monthly service charge of $20 or €20 will be levied."

Fair enough. Works different in Australia with the banks I use anyway.

Gosh banks find ways to make money!!

bitsandpieces

Talking about banks finding ways to make money...<br>

The Co-op bank will only process cheques up to a certain amount 'by negotiation' - and mine is a bit over the limit http://www.cooperativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1211959434204,CFSweb/Page/Bank-CustomerServices Which is very annoying: if they want to process by collection, I'll have to wait months for the money, and be charged more for the privelege I wonder if it's worth negotiating for them to process my cheque by collection? - I've had my account with them for ages, the cheque is from a reliable organisation/bank, etc...

Nationwide, on the other hand, *might* be able to process my cheque by negotiation. But they use a significantly worse exchange rather than the co-op - so using them would cost me around a hundred quid more <br>

I hate banks. Any suggestions welcome - would consider opening an account elsewhere if it let me get less shafted...

jonesMUFCforever

...............Like I suggested - ask for a money transfer into your account - much faster and cheaper.

bitsandpieces

Thanks - but them that pays the money, calls the tune to a fair extent

Think I'll open a citibank account: they were very helpful, it appears it would be fee-free this way, and the exchange rate they use is slightly more generous than the Co-op bank's

Nationwide, on the other hand, have been remarkably unhelpful. They claim that money laundering regulations mean they can't tell me how long the cheque will take to clear, or how much the fees will be, until my local branch has sent it to the office that deals with their foreign cheques. They also can't tell me what exchange rate they use (not even the current rate they use). And - if I wanted to cash the cheque through them - I couldn't fill the (long) form in at home and post it with cheque direct to the responsible office myself: it *has* to go to a branch and then go through their internal mail. When I complained about this, the response was 'well, you need to cash the cheque somewhere'

I only really use their current account for fee free access abroad anyway...so if Citibank offer this then this might be a good time to move.