amideislas

Halifax was the one who quoted nearly £8000 in fees and lousy exchange rates (yes, Eight Thousand Pounds) for the posh, luxurious act of transferring €140,000 Euros to Germany for a property transaction - the very same procedure as transferring €20. (Warning: for those whose first assumption is some daft criminal motive theory, simply by association with such vast, decadent wealth, this discussion probably isn't your cup of tea).

We therefore chose to send the funds to Oanda, who charged about £200 in total (including exchange rate losses) for the transfer to Germany. Unfortunately, Oanda has since discontinued their foreign transfer services, stating that increased UK regulation has made it too complicated and expensive to continue those services.

Since these fees and rates are so insanely profitable for UK banks, I can only suspect that UK banks are getting a bit pissy about all these alternative transfer services competing on their turf, and likely are pressuring lawmakers to pass more and more burdensome regulation in an effort to "make it more fair" and "level the playing field". UK Banks: 1, Public: 0, and another great example of how increased regulation decreases competition.

Fortunately, there are still plenty of foreign transfer outfits in the UK that offer much more reasonable rates than UK banks, and still make a good profit.

Funny, you don't find many of those transfer services doing the same level of business from Europe to the UK. It's a business that's rather unique to the UK where demand is high because UK banks impose complex burdens and charge a fortune for international transactions (whether by bank transfer or debit card).

Conversely, international transactions are much more routine for European banks, and as a result don't consider international transactions as something "posh" or "special", and therefore provide it as "standard" in their online banking with any current account, and offer much more reasonable fees and rates of exchange.