Question for users of XETrade
 

Hi, I know some of you have used and recommended this in the past. I have a simple question that is not obvious from their website (I've set up an account with them and am ready to go). How do you actually make a transfer (with confidence I add - I went all the way through their basic trade process but balked at pressing Confirm).

I want to transfer say 1000 GBP to here in the US from the UK. I entered 0 for buying, 1000 for selling, USD for buying currency and GBP for selling currency. I chose my EFT bank as the destination, and the only option it gave for paying them was through wire transfer - is this correct?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

I've not used XE trade for sending GBP to the US. When you send USD (US) to GBP (UK) there is (should be) another option other than "wire", it is something like "direct debit", where XE trade directly charges your account. I don't know if they offer that service in the UK, though my guess is that they do. If so you will need to set up/ preregister a British bank account as that is what you have to do for the "direct debit" option to appear when sending funds from the US.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

I already have a UK account registered as the primary account for transferring money out of - that was the one with the wire option. "shoulda woulda coulda" :)

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

Xe only offer eft or wire as options to send them money.
As eft is not available (by that name at least in the uk) this won't be an option for you so you'll have to wire it and probably get stung for £30-ish by your lovely UK bank - might make the whole xe thing a bit less value for money, but through no fault of theirs.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

I used them last October to send $35k to my mothers account in the UK. The transaction was flawless apart from the 4 business days it took from leaving my account to appearing in my mothers. It was quite worrying as it appeared that the money had simply disappeared. They put this down to the many security checks that they have to make now since 9/11. The money went EFT from my account to a wire into her account.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

Damn that's not good - no one here who talked up XETrade mentioned that :(.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

Seeing as most of US live and work here not many would be sending cash from the UK to here - more the other way round.
I just logged on to check and...
It depends how much you're moving I suppose but you should still be better off with xe even allowing for the wire fee due to their far superior rates. Obviously the more you move in one go the better off you'll be.
Alternatively you could just use a UK credit card in the US to buy stuff then pay it off with your UK bank account - prob just as good as xe for smallish amounts.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

Slightly incorrect info

Although described as 'wire' you can use things like online banking transfers

I use my natwest online functionality and it costs nothing

I assure you that if everything if set up right then you will incur NO fees or additional costs.

i've transferred over $200k over the last few years and i've never paid ANY fees whatsoever (always UK to the USA)

Hopes this helps to put your mind at rest

:)

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

So does he need to call xe to get their account info that the cash will be transferred to or do thy have an other way of doing it ??

Sounds pretty easy anyway.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

You set up an account to transfer to via your account page in XE you should not have to call them.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

when you complete the transaction on their site they give you a transactrion code and the bacs/chaps number for their bank of america account in the Uk for you to transfer funds to.

it really is a very simple process

do online transaction
get immediate notification of activity
get recipt and instruction of how much to transfer etc
you go to your uk online banking make the transfer to their uk bank
they tell you everything is processed
money is in your account a day later

whole thing takes about 3-5 business days

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

No, that's not what we're talking about - but the above post takes care of it anyway.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

Thanks everyone for posting, and yourself BritGuyTN. I was getting hung up on the first bit - do online transaction - as it wasn't clear what was going to happen next.

I also emailed them at the time I started this thread, so I'm going to look at their response and post it here for good measure.

I'm surprised there was no more info supplied by them like the steps you just posted, for example.

:)

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

Yep BritGuy, the XETrade people called me and confirmed your response. They also told me about their demo system https://www.xe.com/fx/demo.htm where you can go through the features they offer as if you were doing it yourself, without actually commiting yourself to anything. It would have been useful if they had mentioned that in their emails when you were signing up.

Cheers.

Re: Question for users of XETrade
 

Sorry Vegas, but four days is pretty good, typically wires take several days no matter where in the world they go, and that is down to the way that the money actually transfers.

Your US bank doesn't "know" your UK bank, so the funds pass between banks that have an established relationship. For example Podunk National Bank sends the money to Citibank, who send it to NatWest, who send it to Abbey National.

This method of transfer is true even for extrade - the money goes from your bank to xetrade's bank (whatever that is) who send it to say, Citibank, who send it to Nat West, etc, etc.

No matter how you send money you are pretty much stuck with this archaic chain of transfers. Unless you luck-up with a really short chain of transfers, and until the international banks come up with a more effificent way of transferring funds, we are all stuck with the multiday delay between sending and receiving money. :rolleyes: