Loafing Along

Now in the Daily Mail :

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...collapsed.html

AlgarveAndy

Does anyone have current first hand recommendations for moving money to and from UK and Portuguese Bank Accounts

AliceCaroline

We have a Millennium bank account and, unusually for a bank, they give a very good exchange rate.

They have a system where you transfer from your UK bank account into an account they have in the UK (off the top of my head I think that it's at the Natwest) then it appears in your Millennium account a couple of days later.

Works well for us. I compared it with a couple of transfer companies when we started to bring money over and it gave a better or equivalent rate to transfer companies.

Loafing Along

Transferwise. Can use a UK Debit card and it is very quick and quite cheap

macliam

As with the post re Millennium, I have an account with Caixa Geral and use their linked account in the UK.

I used this to transfer £170k in June, the London branch were responsive and the money appeared in my Portuguese account 3 days later (there was a bank holiday).

You can see the rate to be applied before you commit - and the rate you see is what you get, no charges. It was within a gnat's whisker of that offered by the "specialists" (and a damned sight safer)

AlgarveAndy

Thanks all for the information much appreciated

chislenko

Old thread now I realise, but there was a programme on TV in the UK the other week and part of the programme was about a couple who cashed in their pensions etc and sent nearly 300k via Premier FX to buy a place in Olhao. As at the time of the making of the programme they had lost the lot!

Pulaski

If your money, at any time, is not in a bank account, in your own name, that is a risk you run, and even though the risk might be small, and the time of exposure to the risk quite short, the results in the "worst case scenario" can be catastrophic. I have been warning people about this risk as it specifically relates to the Tranferwise "borderless account" (there is a reason why they cannot call it "a bank account" ) - and I wouldn't recommend holding funds in it for more than the shortest possible time, for the reason you mentioned.

I knew of someone who owned a holiday home in Spain and after he retired he sold his home in the UK and his holiday home in Spain and intended to use the proceeds to buy a more expansive villa in Spain. He placed all the proceeds in an iffy offshore bank account, and then lost most of it, at least for a number of years. I suspect that he eventually got much of it back, but being without the money for several years would have undoubtedly been unpleasant and stressful for him and his wife, not to mention permanently losing a big chunk of it and presumably the price of housing increasing during the years he was unable to buy.

MidAtlantic

I know nothing about Premier FX, but any company registered as an Electronic Money Institution by the Financial Conduct Authority, Britain’s financial regulatory body, must keep all of its customers’ funds in segregated accounts, meaning that in the event of the company’s insolvency customers’ funds would be reimbursed to them in full.

I agree that that is probably not as secure as "a bank account in your own name", but it does give a layer of security in the same way that money lodged with a lawyer (in the UK at least) has to be kept in a separate client account.

Obviously such arrangements are only as good as the company's compliance with them and the FCA's enforcement.

Pulaski

Er yeah, and I wouldn't bet the price of lunch on that! In other words, if the company siphons off funds and uses them for their own purposes, then the company collapses, you have been the victim of a fraud, and may not be protected, other than as a general creditor of the failed company, and therefore face a return of only a percentage of what you lost. Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities was an example of that happening, and so was Stanford Financial Group.

Even if you're fully protected, either though a compensation scheme, or in the worst case scenario, through suing someone, you face being without your funds for a period of months (first case) to years (second case).

liveaboard

This is great news; you should tell the premier FX customers, they're going to be thrilled.

macliam

Yeah, as was once explained to me this illustrates the difference between theory and practice.
In theory, this should happen.
In practice, it won't.

Pgmills

the issue here is that there are different FCA registrations and authorisations. Whilst premier FX were registered they were not authorised to do some of the business they did so there was no cover.

liveaboard

I warned people to beware of this and other independent currency exchange shops. I was shouted down by loyal customers who quoted all sorts of solid reasons nothing could go wrong.

Today I issue the same warnings; you can lose your money.
You probably won't, but you could.
Just because everything went well in the past doesn't mean it will in future.

Premier FX claimed to protect their customers, when in reality they were living it up on customer's cash.

Pgmills

Sorry, I missed the sarcasm in your previous post. I totally agree with the sentiment. If it looks to good to be true, it is!