bank transfer charges

 We shall shortly be transferring funds from a sale of a house in England to our account Spain in order to buy over here.  Does anyone know if/what the charges will be?  Has anyone done this and is able to share their good/bad experiences, please?  Donna 

I'd go in the bank & speak to them  as most have a standard charge of 0,4%. So if you are sending 100,000€'s they 'll charge 400€'s to 'receive' it !!!!

Hi Donna - never transfer more than 50,000€ at once or the receiving bank will charge you for it.  Just split it into as many payments as you need and there should be no charges. 

Also make sure you use a currency broker to get the best rate of exchange (I use John Mohan at Sterling Exchange).  Their rates change every 4 minutes so it is always worth talking to a good broker about the right time to move.  They sent me an email this week saying that this is a very good time to change money, but unfortunately I have just about emptied the piggy bank in the UK!

For anything more than £5000 I have used Currencies Direct ... no charges either end!! and usually a good exchange rate.

If you are talking 100k then they should offer a better rate than when transfering 5k

Hope this helps

I'm told by Barclays in Spain that there will be no charge if it is less than 50K for the receiving bank though Moneycorp doesn't charge anything for sending out money to the bank.

Best check first though .... as not all banks are like Barclays.

When we first came out to Spain - many moons ago - people like currencies direct and moneycorp etc were not around and we had to use the high st banks to do the transfer. Quickly learnt that if you told the sending bank in the UK that you wanted to 'PAY THE CHARGES ALL THE WAY THROUGH' it was much much cheaper than your spanish bank charge a percentage for receiving the money when it got there.

... but would still suggest one of the specialist currency transfer companies as usually their exchange rates are very keen and they guarantee no charges either end.

M

This message was last edited by spiritofspain on 30/06/2010.

 Thank you all very much for this very useful information.  We are looking at Global Currency Exchange Network and Moneycorp.  Any experiences?  Observations?  Thanks, Donna 

Well, I use Moneycorp to transfer a regular amount of £800 monthly.  They charge £4 for doing so.  However, in the last couple of months, the exchange rate has been pretty poor.  I thought it was just the day on which they did the transfer.  However, I have double checked this month and they have converted it at less than the tourist rate on that day (1.16 as opposed to 1.18 tourist and 1.22 bank exchange).  A non-urgent transfer through the bank would cost £10 with no receiving fee but I'd have got an exchange of 1.18 on the day so I'd have slightly made just by using the bank.

Am looking round for someone who will give a better exchange rate on smaller transfers.

 Thank you for this.  We also have a similar amount transferred monthly, and have noticed the same as you.  Could be time for a change.... Global CEN promise to give a better rate than MC, so we'll check!  Thanks, Donna 

We are contracted into an appalling monthly rate with HIFX, fixed last November for 12 mths at 1.06.  I asked  if they did a variable rate which they don't.   So now we are stuck with this until December this year.  I spoke to HIFX a couple of months ago to ask if we could reset the rate, which we can't, and was offered a rate of 1.11 for 12 mths starting from December this year.  I refused, we had just transferred some money from our sterling account with Solbank to our euro account that day at 1.15.  Now we are wary of using any company, and are thinking of just transferring our monthly company pensions from the UK to our bank in Spain either by using on line banking or using our debit cards at cash points.  We know there will be a charge but at least we will get the current exchange rate.

Hi Val - you can use exchange companies without locking yourself into a monthly transfer. 

Before I moved out here permanently I used Sterling Exchange and I would vary the amount according to need, and there were never any charges or any problems with sending small amounts.  Since I moved I have continued to use them to top up my account when it gets too low and, again no problems as I always get the commercial rate.

I dealt with John Mohan and he was very good, so don't be tempted to go back to the tourist rate!

We used Moneycorp and Halifax for our recent move.

The rate we got was good but talking to the broker its clear the company, and I imagine most brokers, prefer to deal in thousands not hundreds. They're also professional traders and if you don't feel comfortable with options such as locking your rates for future contracts just make one transaction and then revert to your bank for smaller amounts. Obviously you can gain or lose this way depending on how the rates move and you need to find a risk profile which works for you.

Most UK brokers seem to offer two free transfers for amounts over Euro 50,000 but then want to charge about £ 20- £25 for each additional transfer. 

In theory a transfer of less than Euro 50,000 does not attract charges from the receiving bank but check the small print and in some cases for intermediary banks who pass funds through to your bank from the broker.

Halifax like Barclays commit to no charges for receipts under Euro 50,000 but if you use their UK bank branch to send regular funds the charges will be hidden in the lower rate on the day.

So shop around and haggle on what is offered if charges are being mentioned.

Good luck!

The only thing you have to remember is .... if you are contracted into a rate of 1.06 and the pound had fallen ... you would be saying whooopeee when every one else were getting 1.00!!!!

You have to decide what risk you are prepared to take and either say yes or no

You also need to consider whether you prefer knowing exactly how much money you will get each month.  I decided against it, because when I rang a company in the UK about setting up a monthly transfer (I can't remember which one it was), the rate was so much lower  - and even lower than the tourist rate.  For a year I transferred money online from BBVA in London to the branch in Jumilla, which was OK but meant I was obsessed with watching for the best rate possible and trying to guess whether it was going to improve or not!  I was also charged each time I transferred money, though it was refunded at the end of the year because the monthly balance was over the minimum limit required.

In the past we have used Global Currency Exchange Network and Currencies Direct for transferring larger amounts, and neither charged for sending or receiving the money.

I finally decided to get my state pension paid into my Spanish bank account and can now see the monthly fluctuations, which so far have looked OK.  Last month I got a rate of just over 1.20, without any charges of course.

Sue

Thanks for all the replies.  I think for our monthly amount it's best not to be locked into any kind of contract, and then we can try the various methods and see which works for us.  When I enquired about how much to cancel the contract, they wanted £700 because there was 8 months still to go.  When we first moved over, we were confused about the best way to do things, now we are a bit wiser.  I think it would have been okay to be locked into the contract if the rate had been high but not when it was so low.  We made a mistake and are paying for it now.