British Expat Forum

Our bank wanted to charge us 1% of the value of the transaction to transfer sterling into a recipient Thai baht account. (Oh yes, plus the admin fee, the this, that, and the next thing.)

If, for example, we were buying a house for £5M ( ) that means they would've taken £50,000! What a cheek - 1%! Our house (just a lease anyway) isn't costing anything like that amount but even so, how can the bank justify 1%? Surely it costs them the same amount to do the transfer whatever the actual amount. It would seem fairer to charge a flat fee.

Luckily we thought to go through Currency UK, we've saved heaps. Once the transaction is done and dusted, and we feel able to give a personal recommendation, we'll be shouting from the rooftops. Don't give your money away to the bank. What a cheek they have to want a percentage.

The ForEx specialists just charge you a fee - something like £10. I'll let you know how it all goes through. Meanwhile the Thai bank's computer is down and so the money is in limbo. I wonder who is earning the interest on it meantime until it shows up.

This is not exactly on the topic, but with regard to the flat rate fee, I work for lawyers and we do real estate transactions. Quite often the fee is based on the value of the house. I have always thought that it should be a flat rate or maybe the other way around. When the house is expensive, the people have money and there is usually no problem. When the house is not worth much, often the purchasers are strapped for cash and it has happened that the lawyers have to take a cut in fees because the purchasers cannot come up with the balance of cash.

Now, before you all come back and talk about rich lawyers, in this city at least real estate is a cut price transaction and some lawyers charge next to nothing because they rely on volume. I don't think too many lawyers get rich here by doing the odd real estate deal.

Just thought I would mention it - the premise is the same - the work is the same regardless of the cost of the house!

Our bank in Spain were going to charge us for receipt of funds from the UK. I told them if they did I would go elsewhere, and they backed down.

Most of the big currency firms who arrange foreign transfers will do so for free.

Alan

Thanks Alan, I went straight to the horses mouth to make sure I'd understood correctly. The following quote is from Currency UK's FAQs:




Whereas with the bank there was a £45 transfer fee, and an exchange charge of 1%

(In the interests of transparency, I should add that BE earns a small commission for introducing new clients to Currency UK - at no additional cost to the client. Most, if not all, currency brokers pay to attract new business.)

I've edited the subject heading and some of the original posting as it was a bit of a shock/horror story.

Our money went through fine with CurrencyUK but we're also exploring other means of transferring money. For example, the Thai banks want hard currency so we're giving that a shot to see how it works out.

Anyone transferring any significant sum of money really should shop around and find what's going to be the best deal for them.

I have a horror story related to the way a receiving UK bank (Shabby, sorry - Abbey, National) dealt with a transfer from France to UK when there was a typo in the IBAN code.

1. I requested a transfer from BNP Paribas to my daughter-in-law's Abbey National account.
2. Two days later, I received a statement from BNP Paribas indicating that the transfer had taken place, but noting that the IBAN code did not match the a/c number (the last few digits of UK IBAN codes replicate the a/c number). My local BNP branch told me not to worry - the transfer had been accepted, so the receiver must be satisfied that the recipient's name and address plus her bank branch code and a/c number were sufficient (only the last digit in the IBAN code was wrong).
3. BNP Paribas transmitted the IBAN code correction 3 days after the original transfer.
4. For the next 8 days, no funds arrived in the target account, and Abbey National head office staff insisted that if there were a mismatch they would not have accepted the transfer. They also said they could not trace the transfer using the details on my BNP Paribas statement (date, amount, IBAN code with erroneous last digit, branch and account details, customer name and address). They insisted that the only solution was for BNP Paribas to send a SWIFT message requesting a trace.
5. On the 10th day, the Abbey National branch said they had received notification of the transfer and had just reversed it a short while before my daughter-in-law called, because the IBAN code did not match the account details. They said there was nothing they could do about it - 'it's all automated'.

I e-mailed BCSB helpline, who gave me the following useful response:



Meanwhile, I'm waiting for the money to arrive back in my account before transferring it to my son's BoS account instead....

My daughter-in-law's boss has said their company will lend her the GBP4,000 so that they can pay the caterers for their wedding next week. Working for an enthusiastic small company can sometimes be wonderful.

Glad there's some good news at the end there, Ruggie. And good luck to all on the forthcoming wedding.

All this transferring money stuff can be a real pain.

Our transfer from a UK bank, via Currency UK, to a Thai bank went fine. Currency UK was great, they did exactly what they said they would and kept us informed every step of the way. The problem we had was that the Thai bank didn't want to receive Thai Baht and sat on the darned thing for several weeks. They want the hard currency.

The next major transfer we tried was to shift sterling into a Thai bank and let the Thai bank convert it. Easy peasy - a good rate and done within two business days. As I said, you have to shop around.

Oh yes, and Dave made a slight clerical error with another transfer - one wrong digit - but that was cleared up fairly quickly with no drama.

I guess it depends on where you are. Some banks will bend over backwards to get hard currency. If that doesn't apply, then it's shop around time.

Yes Kay, those cross-currency transactions can certainly be a pain (not least in the pocket). I guess it's just more profitable for the banks to cling to their Dickensian practices.

We've been living in the Republic of Ireland for 15 years, and our gap between credit cards on moving (probably all too familiar to you) was 13 years. For stuff we could only get from the UK (right down to little entry fees for comprtitions etc), we were forever having to drive into the town to get a Sterling banker's draft, for a fee of course (usually having explained to the UK people that we couldn't just send a cheque, and described a banker's draft, and got dubiousness instead of the opposite!)
When we changed to the Euro here I thought we'd at least be able to send an ordinary cheque to, say, France. But - guess what? Yes, no change - same banker's draft needed, same fee as ever (only cash is interchangeable).

We can lodge Stirling cheques here OK, the only problem (apart from exchange fees as usual) being waiting for them to clear. It used to take 10 working days, but now it can be 6 weeks (I wonder why?).
Same with those electronic transfers within the UK, that apparently take days.

That's one of the reasons I'm looking into opening a Sterling account in the UK, but I'll start a separate thread to ask about that.

If it's any consolation, Ruggie, you're not alone. The sagas I've had with Abbey National in the past have been infuriating, and A.N. has appeared regularly for yonks in newspaper advice sections. I don't know how they manage to lose so many bits of paper - the most basic one-person business does better. Maybe the current loss of confidence in building societies will force them to get their act together (if they've noticed it, that is).

What a nightmare, Hilary. Unfortunately, as you've seen, this type of experience is all too common. Why can't the banks just make things simpler? I guess it's obvious - they make a heck of a lot more money by messing their customers around. Grrr!