katybluewater

I have an HSBC USA and UK account and you can transfer between the 2 online - its very easy, and you wont get charged - its just the exchange rate that you need to watch.

Mummy in the foothills

Thank you for that I'll let him know to open a US online account and go from there.

avanutria

Really? When I tried to do that they wanted to charge me at both ends. Part of the reason I closed my accounts there.

Mummy in the foothills

avanutria

To be fair, it was five years ago and maybe they've improved. It wasn't an online process then.

fashionista

On the UK student loans side, I spoke with them earlier this week as I will soon be moving to the US. They said that rather than make monthly payments I could save up a bulk sum and do it less frequently to save on transfer fees. They don't mind how frequently you pay them as long as they get the correct amount for the 12 month period and you let them know.

They also said that as I wouldn't know what my income was going to be, I could get my partner to write a letter saying that he would be supporting me and that would suffice for the initial 12 month period.

However - with regard to penalties - you might want to bear in mind that if you don't tell them how much your overseas income is for the year then they have a default sum that they expect depending on the country you live in.

For the USA that's equivalent to £197 a month http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.u...ORTAL#countryu

goldchoccycoin

Hi , I pay off my UK student loan from Australia and transfer the cash using www.tranzfers.com (very low fee transfer and great exchange rate).

I usually transfer 6 - 12 months worth of payments into my UK HSBC account and let the monthly direct debit come out of that.

Good luck.

Bink

I too am paying off my student loan from the States. I was told it had to be paid from a UK bank account, not sure whether you could use a credit card for it.

I knew that you could pay lump sums, but when I enquired they told me that since I knew what I was earning, I'd have to pay them monthly. I didn't really investigate the matter further.

It's a pain having to transfer $ every month just to cover the student loan repayment. I use xe.com which is pretty good.

PhilN

I was in the same situation...... if you push them enough you should be able to convince them to allow you to pay quarterly, thus allowing you to choose when to transfer the mony to the UK.

This is important as it allows you to mitigate your foreign currency risk to some degree. (which can cause more financial pain than any possible bank fees - if your bank still charges them!)

JFisher

I had my current job (which definitely puts me over the repayment threshold) for a year before I started repaying my loans to the SLC. This was because of the time of year that they send out their income assessment forms to me. In short, they didn't seem to care and they didn't penalise me at all for it.

As for your second question: I just now set up something on their website that lets me pay them every month with my US debit card. I even set up a recurring charge so that I don't even need to think about it for the next year. I haven't had any problems with it, nor do I get charged a fee: but that's because my US bank doesn't charge fees for such things I suppose.

Good luck!