How to transfer small sums of money to spanish bank account

Hi all! Happy New Year to everyone on EOS!

Just an update, last week we transferred 500euro to our Spanish bank account. We got a rate of 1.0858 and the cost was £460.83. While the "headline" rate was 1.12 this is the rate on the bbc web-site. While I was online with HiFX checking their "live" rate, I also spoke on the phone with another company I set up a trading facility with called RabbitFX. They offered the same rate as HiFX, but they wanted a £10 charge!! I think Moneycorp, who were the first ones we used, have the same policy of charging a fee for small transactions.

I find HiFX to be very convienient, you get live quotes and its simple to set up a facility online, there are no charges at either end for any amounts and the money arrived in our Spanish account 6 working days after I paid.

Hi peteranne, just came across your reply to my post - thanks - I'd figured the Halifax UK to Halifax Es wouldn't be as good a deal as Nationwide hole in wall. (I wonder why Nationwide don't open a Spanish branch.) In our case we just need a couple of thousand a year in the Halifax Es to cover Iberdrola and Vodaphone direct debits, so it's just a case of rembering to call in at the Madrid branch when we are in town, take cash from their hole in wall and cross the room to the paying in counter.

btw in case anyone using Madrid Barajas doesn't already do this, you can get plenty of free parking anywhere in Barajas town near the Metro which is one stop on the line from the Metro which comes up the airport terminal building - 2 euros. Having over the years donated hundreds to Airport parking we mentioned it to one of our Spanish neighbours who couldn't stop laughing. So for the last few  trips (Ryanair Madrid-Malta last month 6 euros each return total incl taxes, on line check in & payment, no hold bags) we  parked no problem in a free municipal park 300m from the Metro. It was obvious that some of the cars had been there for weeks.

Hi GuyT

We too only put money into our HalifaxES bank account to cover Direct debits for Electric, Suma etc. We usually go over to Spain 2 times a year and put money into our Halifax account, however this year we are going to Florida in April for a change, so we will have to revert to the Halifax to HalifaxES menthod of transfer to cover for Direct debits until we go over again in September.

We are lucky in that we are often pass our halifax branch in Torrevieja so its easy for us to call in and put some cash in, unlike you that have a 200km jourey to Madrid

All the best for 2010

Regards

Hi all, thanks for all the ideas about money transfer. Here's what we did in the end:

I signed up for another hotmail address, and using that address opened a spanish Paypal account and directed payments from PayPal into our Banesto account.

I then sent a request from my spanish Paypal account for money (just for 30 euro as it was a test for the system) to the boss, and she sent the 30 from her paypal account to my spanish paypal account.

I then withdrew the 30 from spanish Paypal into Banesto. After paypal/exchange rates taking their toll we ended up with just over 26 euro into the account. Not great but it's Quick'n'Dirty, and as we don't have a lot of money to spare in big chunks this looks like an o.k way to do it for now.

It beats going overdrawn