Cheap solution for International bank transfers?

Clipsey · 3 Mar 2010 at 14:01

Anyone know of a cheapish method to make International bank transfers, other than just draw the cash out?

Has to be online though, as I still make some cash in the UK, but live in the States. Usually just draw it out here and there from an ATM, but get charged every time

For every $1000 I draw out, I'm paying about $25 or so I think.

Yas786 · 3 Mar 2010 at 14:08

Paypal??...its what i normally use when transferring cash from here to my Canadian bank account...still get charged a certain percentage but i usually send it as a gift etc.

Clipsey · 3 Mar 2010 at 14:13

Yeah not thought of Paypal, I'll have to look at their charges and see what's better. Thanks

Deyvy · 3 Mar 2010 at 14:16

I had to do this once, was looking at a few places. But turned out HSBC let you do it online with their online banking. Easy really. Cheap or not I dont know. I'm guessing they all take a similar % cut.

UberTiger · 3 Mar 2010 at 18:18

Paypal isn't bad if you already have the cash in your account. I used xe.com about 3 years ago for a large transfer and it worked out at a very competitive rate. The cool thing about xe too is that if you're not in a rush to transfer it you can set the rate you want the money to be transferred at, then once the exchange hit's that rate they'll initiate the transaction.

taximike · 3 Mar 2010 at 18:41

Hi mate,

When I was living out there I had a citibank US dollar account which was based in London. It was great because you could move a big amount over and then the balance would stay in US dollars and you could use citibank ATMs for free, you got a debit card and a cheque book that you could use in the states. I would move money into it using HiFX - they would offer a good rate as long as you moved a lot of money across, but still pretty poor unless you were moving more than about £10k at a time. http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking/international/eurocurrent.htm?merchant=citi

For the little transactions I also opened a Nationwide CASH account. It's important just to have the normal cash account because that's the only one that gives you the interbank rate on cash withdrawals. The VISA cards (i.e. their normal current accounts) now charge you 0.84% for every transaction (still a GREAT deal since most banks (RBS, LLoyds TSB etc) load the exchange rate by about 3% then charge ANOTHER 2.75% fee so you end up paying almost 6% more than the interbank rate). But anyway yeah the cash card (the purple one) literally gives you the INTERBANK rate at the ATM, a stunning deal. I found Wachovia ATMs were the only ones not to charge me a $2 or $3 for using the card. I also got their credit card for purchases, sucked up the 0.84%. I think Santander zero is now the only card not charging for foreign transactions.

Hope this helps.

Rich_L · 3 Mar 2010 at 18:46

Yup I have a US Dollar Citibank account in anticipation of a move - you don't get the spot rate (a little under) when transferring money, but it does make it pretty much seamless to transfer money between currencies in the same account without incurring external fees.

Or yes, if you're in no rush, send money by Paypal eCheque - it takes around 3 weeks to transfer from account to account and you only get the Paypal exchange rate, but the fee is, IIRC, limited to $5 or something like that.

taximike · 3 Mar 2010 at 19:02

Rich_L said:
Yup I have a US Dollar Citibank account in anticipation of a move - you don't get the spot rate (a little under) when transferring money, but it does make it pretty much seamless to transfer money between currencies in the same account without incurring external fees.

Or yes, if you're in no rush, send money by Paypal eCheque - it takes around 3 weeks to transfer from account to account and you only get the Paypal exchange rate, but the fee is, IIRC, limited to $5 or something like that.

For small amounts it is better to take the citibank spot rate (about a 2% fee usually, better than a paypal rate anyway) but for big transactions HiFX is better.