Sparkle2nite

Confused as to what to do. We are moving to Nerja and will have the money from the sale of our house in our bank here in the UK. We are renting initially for 12 months and am not sure what to do for the best regarding bank accounts.

I have internet banking already here and am with Lloyds TSB and Barclays. What would you recommend re opening an account with a Spanish Bank for everyday stuff (hole in the wall, direct debits etc) and am I ok to leave my other money here with regard to tax etc.

Hope someone can give me advice, thanks

coralsoft

Spanish banks are now well up technologically with the UK, though some of their procedures and products can seem a bit outdated, slow, convoluted and/or expensive. After being with Banco Popular (because they had a representative in London), we switched to ebankinter: https://www.ebankinter.com/www/en-es/cgi/ebk+home
They also have an English-speaking support line for telephone banking.

Fee-free cashpoint withdrawals, on-line systems, direct debits, etc, etc. for both personal, joint and company accounts. We've got accounts associated with our Banco Halifax mortgage and a few other bits 'n' bobs lying around for higher interest cash and investment funds.

Be prepared to be stuffed for bank charges if you've been used to UK free banking and just use the internet to research which of the fairly generic offerings might have the specific things you need, including local branches if you need to pick up cards, for example.

Look to using one of the money transfer services such as currencies direct to transfer your money from the UK if you aim to use it to buy eventually. They offer the ability to forward buy to lock into rates if you think you're going to get stuffed by foreign exchange rate movements: we lost over £30K because of rate movements between committing to buy and transferring the money from the UK, but if we'd thought about it, we could have locked in to a forward buy on some of the money to reduce the risk of losing that. It sounds painful, but the value of the house probably went up by more than that in the same time, but it would have been nice to have had it in cash.

Taxwise, things depend on your overall circumstances - you might be able to look at making the interest on UK funds gross of interest if you're leaving the UK tax system.

Graham2005

Hi !

not meaning to sabotage this one but I wonder if someone can help ?

I am moving to Spain in January and need to transfer 4/5 K sterling to a Spanish bank. Has anyone got any advice how I can do this ?

Thanks in advance for your help

Fitz750

I imagine all UK banks work similarly therefore you should be able to transfer directly from your UK to Spanish bank account. You will need the Iban or Swift number of the Spanish bank and obviously your account numbers. I'm taking it that both accounts would be in your name. Once you have the details find out the international branch of your bank in the UK and call them. They should be able to transfer the money no problem. The charges may vary but mine are around 25quid and i can transfer max of 5K by telephone, takes about 5days to clear into account.

jdr

LLoyds Bank work with Bancopopular and opened an account in Spain for us.
The exchange was as good as any other and it cost 20 quid to move funds almost immediately.

j0197

I know that you can transfer money free with Halifax. From Halifax in England to Halifax Banco here in Spain. You have a 20 digit number in Spain which is the IBAN. You could also think about using one of those companies who secure the exchange rate for you...you may get a better deal.

cuevacarramaiza

Using a exchange broker saves a lot of money, I regularily use Hifx (http://www.hifx.co.uk), you get a better rate than the banks and they don't charge anything for the transfer, they've also now made it so your spanish bank doesn't charge you to receive the funds. Basically you save a lot of money and it's very easy to do.

Sparkle2nite

Thanks for all your replies. I tried to open an account with the Halifax but they said as we wouldn't have an address in England we couldn't have an account here, so there was no point in opening a Spanish Halifax account.

We have decided to wait until we get to Nerja (arrive on Thursday, whoopee) and see what's what there.

The Hifx system sound good, thanks for the help!

Debbie

Graham2005

Thanks for the advice !

HiFx does sound like a good option, you say that they don't charge you anything and I have looked on there website and they say that the bank which you are transferring doesn't charge you anything either. Seems to good to be true !!! How do they make their money....

cuevacarramaiza

I guess they buy the currency at a better rate than they give you and then pocket the difference, it's still a better rate than the banks though - they must make a fortune!

ROBOBOB

we use tt moneycorp and have done for years,to transfer moneys from the u.k. bank R.B.S. to our bank in florida,it is quick easy and painless.check their site it may be of value to you and others.
one satisfied customer.
www.moneycorp.com