International Currency Transfers

[pilgrim]

I am looking into the question of making currency transfers between the UK and the US and wondered if anyone had any experience of, or thoughts on, a cheap (and reliable/secure) method.

Using an online service would not be my first choice but in general it does seem to be cheaper so I may have to use that method.

One thing I have come across is http://www.currencyfair.com/company which needs to be set up online but transactions can then be carried out by phone.
Has anybody ever used them? Has anybody ever heard of them?
Gives a whole new world of meaning to P2P!

[joiwind]

I am looking into the question of making currency transfers between the UK and the US and wondered if anyone had any experience of, or thoughts on, a cheap (and reliable/secure) method.

Using an online service would not be my first choice but in general it does seem to be cheaper so I may have to use that method.

One thing I have come across is http://www.currencyfair.com/company which needs to be set up online but transactions can then be carried out by phone.
Has anybody ever used them? Has anybody ever heard of them?
Gives a whole new world of meaning to P2P!

Looks interesting but why does a site/company based in Ireland, England and Australia have an option to load the site in Polish ??? (See top-right on site.)

[40hz]

@Pilgrim - If you do end up going with something like CurrencyFair could you do a write-up of your experiences with it? I think that information would be useful to several members here at DoCo.

[4wd]

CurrencyFair appears to be equivalent to the age old Islamic hawala^w system as used by crooks, tax dodgers, pirates and terrorists the World over....so it must be good. 

[pilgrim]

Thanks for the replies.

joiwind.

That was something I noticed, I have no idea why unless they have a large number of clients there.
Another thing I learned both from their website and talking to them is that they are regulated in each of the countries where they have offices, as two of them are in the EU that means the regulation is EU wide.

40hz,

I'll see how I get on. Based on yesterday's exchange rate they were offering 8c on the £ more than my bank without any additional charges.
I did a rough calculation based on exchange rate differences between the bank, the market, and the company, as well as charges.
By my calculations, taking everything into account (sorry about that  ) it costs around 7% through the bank and close to 1% through them.
That is a big difference!

4wd,

The Boss is one of your fellow-countrymen, what can I say? 

[4wd]

I did a rough calculation based on exchange rate differences between the bank, the market, and the company, as well as charges.
By my calculations, taking everything into account (sorry about that  ) it costs around 7% through the bank and close to 1% through them.
That is a big difference!

You need another bank, when we moved a rather large amount of AU$ to the UK a couple of years ago it worked out to ~2.5%, (IIRC).

[pilgrim]

The 7% included all charges, to my bank, to an intermediary bank, to the recipients bank, as well as a reduced exchange rate,
On the exchange rate alone there is a 5.2% reduction on market prices, that is about average compared to other UK banks.

[4wd]

The 7% included all charges, to my bank, to an intermediary bank, to the recipients bank, as well as a reduced exchange rate,
On the exchange rate alone there is a 5.2% reduction on market prices, that is about average compared to other UK banks.

Why is there an intermediary bank?

Given the IBAN/account number of the destination bank/account you should be able to transfer direct to it....at least, that's all we required.

The only fees were at the sending end and an exchange rate that was ~2p lower than market, (IIRC).

[pilgrim]

Why is there an intermediary bank?

Given the IBAN/account number of the destination bank/account you should be able to transfer direct to it....at least, that's all we required.

The only fees were at the sending end and an exchange rate that was ~2p lower than market, (IIRC).

1. Because the receiving does not accept international transactions directly. (They should have stuck with the stagecoaches.)

2. There is no IBAN for US accounts.

3. Part of it depends on the amount you are sending, the figures I have quoted are based on the amount I normally send.

Woe!

These are hard times.
I've always had problems with begging letters but now it's worse than ever.
I keep sending them but no-one replies!