kubwasana

After some delay I am almost ready to buy a property - for
which I'll need dollars. One bank tells me it charges TWO PER CENT commission - which is OK if you're just going off on holiday, but when yu're transferring your savings, that's a heck of a big sum. Another bank tells me it includes the commission in its exchange rate. To me that means I'll have no idea at all of how much I'm been charged! There must be cheaper way of changing from one currency to another. Anybody any good ideas?

Ash UK/US

Where are you? never heard of Kondon before... Anyhow if you are in England and are transferring money from one bank to another (or someone with a US bank account) you can get a international cheque from your bank I did that with barclays and they charged me a flat fee of £8. You could also use a travel agent to get travellers cheques lots many of them charge no fees or travellers cheques or cash exchanges.

Ash

antjen

at the risk of asking a silly question..... would a us bank charge you anything for depositing a international cheque (assuming the cheque was in dollars already) or would they just treat it like an ordinary cheque?? - and is there any limit on these cheques? - as im moving over sometime this summer and this apears to b a good/easy way of transfering large amounts of money, thanks!

Ant

kubwasana

Thanks for the info about an International Cheque - but would that still not require commission for changing one currency to another? And Barclays - of all banks - charged only a flat fee of £8 for the cheque? Wow! That, I imagine, would be for the cheque alone, but surely they must be earning on the currency exchange rate, too. I also find it difficult to believe that a travel agent would be happy to sell Travellers' Cheques for such a large amount - and without making a profit. Their mark-up on cheques is usually quite high.

awd

Typically you are best to use a currency house to transfer large amounts of money. You will need to set up an account with them, then transfer the money from your U.K. bank account to them and they will convert it and transfer it a U.S. account. This took me about 24 hours from the time that I started the process to the money being available in my account

Typically there is no explicit commission and the difference between the buy and sell rates is much narrower than that offered by the banks.

I did this to Canada and used Custom House Currency Exchange. Not sure whether they operate in the U.S. or not but similar services definitely will.

Remember that is the combined effect of the commission and the exchange rate which will determine how much money you end up with. One bank may charge no commission but if it has a large buy/sell spread then it may well not be a good option.

Ash UK/US

When I needed the cheque it was for some goods that I had ordered over the internet... the company (in the US) I used would not accept a international credit card so I had to get a cheque... I think the goods cost something like $87 I went into my local bank and they told me it was a flat fee of £8 they used that days exchange rate then added the £8 on top printed the cheque and that was it. I believe the company/persons receiving the cheque treat it as they would any other.

Lune Poly set a £2000 limit per transaction for commission free travellers cheques... the post office have a £3000 limit. You never said how much you needed. If you wanted to do it this way you would have to do it in a few different transaction.

Ash

Ash UK/US

I assume it is treat as an ordinary cheque... the company I ordered the goods from did not make any additions once they found out I was paying by cheque... I do not know if there is a limit or not the cheque I got was only for $87.

Ash

meauxna

We did a wire transfer UK--->US for a largish sum in GBP. Be sure to get the teller to quote you the wholesale rates and be aware that you may have to take a chance at the 'float' ie, you won't always get a super accurate estimate of the rate you're getting. Those tiny decimal points add up when you are talking larger sums. Our US bank charged us $12 to receive the funds, but it is a consumer, not commercial, bank. YMMV.

For cash, you can't beat the Post Office in the UK; no commission and good rates.

There's also been several past threads on the topic which may give you ideas.

marlborobell

The other thing you can do is set up a US$ current account at Citibank UK. We did that, and just transferred money from our sterling account to our dollar account online, then wrote a cheque. The nice thing about that account is that it's schizophrenic: you manage it in the UK as if it's a UK account, but the cheques are actually checks in the US system (drawn off a 'branch' at Citibank HQ in New York)

The only slight downside is that you're limited to transferring £10K/day between accounts online, but it's probably worth doing that anyway to arbitrage the currency risk.

suzieque

We also used wire transfer and were charged a flat fee which wasn't much. We had to have a notarised letter to fax through to our bank that we want to transfer which is a saftey measure but the whole process was quick & painless.
Sue

kubwasana

Thank you all for your generous assistance which I check out and download! But as regards Citibank:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by marlborobell
The other thing you can do is set up a US$ current account at Citibank UK. We did that, and just transferred money from our sterling account to our dollar account online, then wrote a cheque.

I contacted Citibank, who sent me all their guff, and having scoured it rapidly gave them a call. The young lady informed me they would also charge two per cent for any currency change! When I suggested that was pretty steep on a substantial amount she replied "Well ALL banks charge a similar commission."

BritGuyTN

seriously - someone should put a sticky up at the top of the forum regarding currency exchange - www.xe.com does not charge transfer fees and there is no percentage commission

the only downside i have come across is if you need cash transferred immeidately its not really suitable (it takes 3-5 days)

i've looked into both the natwest multi-currency account and the citibank one... the citibank account has an account maintenance fee if you don't keep a certain level of funds in there at all times... also the citi and natwest rates are not quite as good as xe.com (nearly but not quite)