E-banking transfers from UK to Spain.

Hi all,

Has anyone who is with CAM looked into the fees for, or actually electronically transferred sterling from a UK bank account to their CAM sterling account. I was wondering how it compares to the other methods i.e Currency exchange company or paying in the cash direct at the branch. I have personally taken cash over on two previous visits and deposited directly at the branch which incurs a small charge. I then transfer electronically from my CAM sterling account to the CAM euro account without charge and it seems to give a fair exchange rate. I think my UK bank charges about £24 for an overseas transfer (which I could live with for the convenience of it to say, transfer £1000) but I am not sure if/what the charge is at the other end for CAM to receive. Anyone got previous on this ??

Regards,

Hi Will,

We always do our currency transfers through Currencies Direct.  They have an arrangement with most of the major Spanish banks whereby they do not charge for receiving transfers - also Currencies Direct do not charge for sending the payment and they generally offer a reasonable exchange rate.  We have a regular transfer set up with them to transfer money over each month for the mortgage. 

Haven't tried sending funds via our UK bank as I understand they would charge to send it, the Spanish bank would charge for receiving it and the exchange rate is slightly lower.

Hope this helps.

Debbie

just checked out the site.i see regular transfers are free.great for people with mortgages in spain.im guessing they charge a fee for one off payments .but probably cheaper than the banks?and easier.

Abbey also offer one free transfer a month between them and Santander.  We set up our direct debit to pay mortgage, water etc.

Hi Bilbo,

As lomg as the transfer is in Euros CAM do not change to receive transfers.  The sending bacnk will change you, around £25, make sure to ask for 'YOUR' for the transfer fees rather than OTHER or SHARED the it will only cost the £25.  I have a CAM account and have never been charged, well only once when RBS made a mistake and transfered the money in pounds rather than euros, but they (RBS) refunded it.

 Phil

I too can vouch for Currencies Direct

I have a regular transfer set up to pay the morgage and other bits and pieces. Their minimum amount is only £150.00 per month if you have a regular transfer.

Once your arrangement is set up, then if your Spanish account is running a bit dry and you need to put a bit more than your regular amount in, all you need to do is e-mail them, giving at least 5 days notice, and they can adjust the amount that they take from your UK account for transfer purposes. This can be a one-off adjustment ( ie please increase my monthly transfer from £250  to £1000 for the month of July only, then revert to £250 thereafter) or it can be an ongoing change ( ie please increase my monthly transfer from £250 to £350 from now on)

I'm forever tinkering with the amount, just to keep pace with all the bills that are coming in

OK, thank's for those answers folks. I have used Currencies Direct myself for all the major stage payments so have an account ready to go. Time to set up the regular monthly transfer then now that 'bill time' is upon us for ever more !!

Regards,

From later on this year, October I think, there is a new payment system being introduced across europe which will mean that you can make a payment direct from your UK Bank account to Spain, particularly using online banking, a service that is not available widely at the moment.

Also, you will be able to set up euro direct debits to be paid from your sterling bank account in the UK, so if you don't have a mortgage or your mortgage provider doesn't insist on you having a current account, it will be possible to pay all your Spanish bills from your UK bank account.

Only issue there is that you wouldn't be able to book an exchange rate but it sounds like a good system that may benefit some people.

Noreen

Thank's Noreen,

Nice to receive feed-back from people not involved wit h Polaris developments but maybe with more knowledge of the sydtem & how it works. I can't understand how in this age of international commerce we cannot just transfer from one bank accout to the other - after all we can purchase goods from all over the world on our credit cards / bank cards. But there again it is probably one of the last remaining ways banks make an easy peasy profit !!

Regards,

Hi all.

We used to bank with CAM bank but changed to Halifax in Spain, we also opened a Halifax account in the Uk because you do not pay any transfer fees at all, also worth noting is that the spanish Halifax issue you with a Visa connect cash card, Very useful for not paying Ryanair £9.50 credit card fees to pay for flights,

Good Luck

Alan

Rodagolf