newadventure

A colleague mentioned http://www.currencyfair.com/ to me. I had a brief look and it seems a smart idea. Before i trust them with any of my hard earned cash, i was wondering if anyone had used them already?
Thanks

markwm

Have used XE.com for years - never had a problem; rates seem good.

becks_r

my husbands bank told us to use paypal - seemed to work ok but took ages

GeoffM

The bank's rates are worse than PayPal? As of now, the exchange rate GBP>USD is 1.54 for PayPal, 1.58 for XE, 1.5422 for Lloyds TSB. That's a $40 difference per £1000 transferred comparing PayPal to XE. PayPal also have a variable fee for currency conversions on top of the exchange rate - I haven't quite worked it out, but sometimes I get charged pittance, other times it's not insignificant. And as for banks, many/most charge either inbound or outbound wire fees (eg Lloyds TSB £15 outbound; Wells Fargo inbound $15).

As for currencyfair, never heard of them, sorry.

newadventure

Currencyfair giving 1.579 at the moment. Do XE add charges on top, or are they included in the exchange rate?

markwm

Not bad: got 1.5686 about an hour ago but that includes all charges.

becks_r

I'm not sure what the bank were going to charge but I transferred £3,065 out of my bank account into paypal and $4,600 went into my husbands account. and the only fee listed in paypal was $5, but it took 7 days within paypal and a few more days to clear through his bank.

Not sure how it compares - we were in a rush so I didn't have a huge amount of time to investigate, but hopefully the figures above will help you with your investigation.

Since then a friend recommended RationalFX, which he uses to get his £s to Euros in France, and someone else has used World First for £s to Dollars and both were happy with them.

markwm

Transfer from my UK bank to XE: same day using FPS. XE confirm transaction: they wire the money as soon as they have my money to the US bank. That then shows in my account within a day or so. No other charges. Has to be the quickest and easiest way though I'm sure other Forex sites will have a similar system.

GeoffM

No additional fees with XE.

1.50 - but as we don't know exactly when it was, there's nothing to compare it to. If you used £3065 at today's rates, he would have got over $100 extra if he used XE instead of PayPal.