jo-ann

I have had a pension payment sent in sterling to my sterling account in spain with no problems, but on a second pension which has also been sent to my sterling account in spain it has arrived in euros, how can this happen when the specific account number has been used and the sending party are adamant that the transfer was made in sterling and the receiving party are insisting it arrived in euros. Help please

amideislas

UK banks can be rather brain-dead when it comes to anything not within the UK, or not in Sterling. It is probably assumed that because you are in a foreign country, you cannot have sterling (which of course, is patently false).

Besides, they can also make a good bob by giving you a lousy exchange rate (as most UK banks do).

You'll probably have to bash them on the head a few times to get them to sort it out.

Rosemary

Sounds like human error but no-one taking responsibility. Good luck with sorting this out, banks are such a pain. It has taken me 10 months to gain one correct pension payment from a bank in the UK. They continually said that my bank here was blocking the payment and that the details that I had provided were incorrect but finally they realised that it was their mistake and actually managed a payment. No apologies, no acknowledgement of the stress all of this caused me, nothing but ignorance.

Rosemary

HeikeundAlan

sterling bank accounts that news to me too
could you tell us more please

heike

snikpoh

Most Spanish banks give you the opportunity to open sterling accounts if you wish.

tebo53

What are the benefits of having a sterling account in a euro country? I would like to know before I open my own account shortly.

Surly you could end up paying more in exchange fee's

Steve

snikpoh

I agree, I don't understand it either.

With the Cyprus situation, I wouldn't want to keep too much money here either.

amideislas

Just speculating, but one issue we have to deal regularly with is the ridiculous exchange rates UK banks offer. European banks charge a much more reasonable rate of exchange, so, if I were forced to use a UK bank or a European bank to exchange between Sterling and Euros, I'd certainly use a European bank.

So, one argument having a sterling account in your Spanish bank could lower your exchange rate costs.

We use a different method to exchange Sterling into Euros at near interbank rates; through a forex trading account, which is slower, but saves 1000's in transfer fees and exchange rate rip-offs charged by UK banks.

jo-ann

Our pensions are paid annualy which means that we can chose when we want to exchange to euros, ie when the rate is higher not on the very low rate that has been used at the beginning of this week. This always worked well when our bank in spain had a branch in London but last year the London branch closed and now we are left with this mess.

Lynn R

I use Currency Fair to transfer sterling to my Spanish bank account for living expenses (and I know some other members do too). Their exchange rate is always around €0.0050 below the mid market rate (much better than my bank or even most other Forex companies). They charge a flat fee of €3 for a standard transfer - I always use that instead of the more expensive priority transfer, and so far the funds have always arrived in my Spanish account the day after the transfer. It is very easy to set up an account with them online, as you can scan and upload or email to them the documents to provide proof of identity and address.

CapnBilly

I agree with Lynn R. I've been using CurrencyFair for about 2 years. The last few times I've got over the market rate, as I've put the rate I wanted and let it run for a few hours. It's even better now they can receive faster payments. It takes about 2 hours for the sterling to appear in your account, and then you can trade. I normally transfer money in about 8am and trade during the day sometime, and transfer out in the afternoon. As Lynn says, money is my spanish account the next day ( usually around 11am). I have once received it the same day when I dealt and transferred by 10am.

I usually maintain enough euros for about 3 months expenses, so if the rate is down one month, then I don't need to trade.

Lynn R

I edited my post as I put the decimal point in the wrong place re the exchange rate! Maths never was my strong point, to put it mildly.

bobd22

I am also a convert to Currency Fair and find it a great service. Last time I was over I decided I had too much in my Spanish account and transferred some back via Currency fair as normal worked perfect. I now just keep enough there to cover a few months bills and will top up as needed.

guirijohn

This is news to me, I remember reading that foreign currency bank accounts, i.e. non euro, are considered complex financial products and are not offered by Spanish banks to non business customers. Nor could I find any reference to foreign currency account services in the web sites of Santander, BBVA or La Caixa.

If you have a sterling account with a Spanish bank it is obviously possible. But I wonder if the accounts are offered through offshore subsidiaries, in which case they would not be covered by the deposit protection scheme. I doubt if the bank would take the trouble to point this out.

snikpoh

Both Santander and Sabadell offer a sterling account - they are not offshore. I don't know about the other banks.