Bomjeito

We are looking to buy a second house back in Scotland and need to move money back over. Coming this way, we used XE for money transfer and back in 2009, they were fine.







Any thoughts of which company might be best to move some of it back to the UK? I've seen more discussion online for Torfx and World First.





We hold accounts with HSBC however not sure if via a bank is the best bet.

Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Owen778

Last time I moved money, TransferWise gave the best rate, including fees, and they can now transfer a lot more than they used to. I have also used USForex before that.

tom169

Ive also used transfer wise over the last year and found them to be the best for price.

Asg123

I have also found Transferwise to be better than the other brokers that I've used, and much better than the banks.

Pulaski

For the amount of money you need to buy a house, you might want to check with your bank - ask them for the "dealing desk rate", typically for $100,000+ as it might be competitive with the on-line FX brokers.

Bomjeito

Thank you! I'd wondered that. Thank you for the correct language and we'll follow it up!

Pulaski

You're welcome.

Also bear in mind that the exchange rate changes every few seconds, so it is hard to compare rates as you have to do it real time, and I am not sure if a bank web site will provide real-time dealing desk rates.

petitefrancaise

Worldfirst always fine for us.

I'm a fusspot and for large amounts of money, I'd make a spreadsheet and make sure I put in all the fees as well as the exchange rate to give me a bottom line real comparison. Don't forget to find out if the receiving bank will make charges - generally not with worldfirst but if it's a bank transfer then they might.

I think worldfirst will guarantee the exchange rate for the next 24 hours.

Bomjeito

Thank you all. We tried TransferWise for a small amount ($5000.) After processing, small print came up that the rate we were given will not be the exact rate as it takes up to 5 business days and they'll take an average of the rates during those days in transfer.


?? We cancelled the transfer! When we moved money from UK to USA in 2009, we used XE.com. Those were spot rates and the rate confirmed (over the phone too!) was the rate that the money was sent and the amount that arrived.


Is this the way FX is being done these days? We want to be sure before we move much more.

tom169

Strange. I wonder if that is a USD to GBP thing. When I transfered I'm fairly sure that I locked in the rates.

petitefrancaise

No.must be a transferwise thing. Worldfirst don't do that, or at least they didn't last time we used them which wasn't that long ago.

tom169

Sorry I should have been clearer. It's definitely a transferwise thing, but I'm not sure if it's because it's a transferwise AND USD->GBP thing.

When I used them going the other direction it would lock the rate.

Pulaski

I wonder if it's a transferwise AND USD->GBP thing, AND a timing thing - Bomjeito didn't say when she made the transfer, but there has been significant volatility in the GBP-USD exchange rate this year, and I can imagine an FX broker might have a procedure for smoothing out the peaks and troughs during times of extreme volatility.

Bomjeito

Okay, why is this so complicated? Doing this from UK to US was so simple. We then went ahead with UKForex. Did $5k and an agent called at 2 in the morning to confirm. Spot rate, no issues.


So I go to wire the funds from our Wells Fargo bank account. $5000 a day limit for wire transfers. This will be impossible for the amount we need to transfer over. Help me out as I'm feeling really dumb here. How does one transfer a very large amount of money? I guess a trip to the bank branch might help but online/phone has told me that $5000 a day wire transfer (at $30 a transfer) is all I can do. This will take more than a month!

Bomjeito

Or perhaps online wire transfer only have this limit. I will go to the bank on Monday.