lerato

Hi all,

Well I rang my English bank today to find out what their rate is if I transferred my funds via them today. The girl said she couldn't tell me as they just use the Bank of England's base rate to do it, so go and look at that.

Well! For the life of me I don't get it...I can't even FIND the current base rate online. And even if I did, I don't get the link to the exchange rate, how to calculate it etc...

Anyone shed any light? I searched but couldn't find an answer.

lerato

LouiseR

Hi Lerato,

Base rate has dropped again today http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7871932.stm I'm not sure of exchange rate implications...

Is our £ weaker or better if base rate is lower? Hopefully someone very knowledgable will be along shortly to explain!

TMRE

Exchange rate is showing 2.25 on BBC website

lerato

Thanks guys. Is it right that my bank can't tell me the exchange rate they'd use? Otherwise how can other companies tell me what they would use, and also I assume others have managed to do it to compare what they would get with the bank versus what they'd get with a transfer company...

I'm most likely going to use UKforex (not considered Hifx much b/c when I tried to send an enquiry it just didn't work on their web page, in Firefox or Safari, and it frustrated me too much!!)

But UKforex, there's no charge, and prob a slightly better rate...if I can find out what the bank would use!

lerato

lerato

Well - won't be using my bank as they couldn't even tell me. 1st person - no we don't have that information... 2nd person - i'll put you through (automated menu system then it hung up). 3rd person - same as 2nd. 4th person - what? you want to do what with your money, why?...oh ok...no i don't know, let me find out (automated menu system then it hung up!)

Bearing in mind I was supposed to be ringing an 0845 number, which would have cost a fair bit from my mobile as i was also on hold a long time... (instead i used saynoto0870.com to find the geographical number).


I'd rather use a company that can tell me what rate it will be at...xe.com looks to be best exchange rate but not sure if there's any guarantee, if they're accredited etc. If not, then UKforex/Ozforex...

JCSUPERMOTO

Lerato

I cant give you a answer but am interested in the process!!

So you taking money out of your uk account and putting it in a australian one?

So say Lloyds tsb was your uk account and say commonwealth was the aus one, you can ask tsb to transfer it directly to commonwealth in aus?

lower rate i take it then with a 3rd party company would be a better rate?
Sorry for the jump in lerato

jase

lerato

That's totally fine! Yes, it seems you get a lower rate if you transfer using your bank to do the process. So you could ask TSB to do the transfer, providing them with all the details for your account with Commonwealth. There is normally a bank charge (mine is £20, think they vary between £15 and £25 seeming to be the norm.)

But 3rd party companies offer better rates...
(And yes - I'm transferring GBP from my Nationwide account to Aus$ in my Westpac account)

JCSUPERMOTO

Cheers girl

Just getting the gist of it,so i know what to do when the time comes.

Its the "shall i? ....shant i?" with the rate or wait till tomorrow

lerato

Well, I'm hoping to get my passport back tomorrow with my visa label in as it's all been approved etc, so I'm running on borrowed time!! As probably flying Saturday if it comes tomorrow...

With the rate, I kind of think even if it is worse when I buy it than the next day, etc, it'll all even out in the end - in terms of buying things out there, saving money/losing money, my salary...that sort of thing.

But then, I'm not transferring anything like £200k or more, so I think if the potential difference was more like £2,000 when the rates went down, I'd probably find that harder to bear!!

JCSUPERMOTO

Saturday

Superb!
Just taking a glance @ your blog if coolio to get some tips n tricks

jase

LouiseR

We're using www.ozforex.com I've found they offer better rates than the High St Banks and you pay £7 for the transfer if it's under £3000 if it's over it's free.

It's quite a simple process really, we did it yesterday. Sent across $200 just to activate our westpac account.

What you do is tell them how much you want to transfer and they'll tell you the rate they'll give you. Then you provide them with your Aussie bank details and once you've done that and confirmed, they'll give you their UK bank details (Barclays) for you to transfer the sterling in to.

Straight online banking transfer so no sneaky £20ish charges from your bank Ukforex then send the money from their Barclays account to your Aussie account and Voila!

You've got $$$$ !