Phoodilicious

I have seen many people recommend using Xoom or XE to transfer money from the US to the UK but I haven't seen anyone mention whether the UK receiving bank charges any fees? I want to send money from a personal account in the US to my personal account with Natwest, can anyone advise please? Thank you.

Jerseygirl

The NatWest don't charge us.

Phoodilicious

That's just the answer I wanted thank you! It's got to work out faster, and probably cheaper, than my current method of transferring from Wells Fargo to my husband's US HSBC account at a cost of $3 for a 3 day transfer or $10 for a 1 day transfer then he moves it from the US HSBC to the UK HSBC and then into my UK Nat West (these happen usually instantly or at worst just a couple of hours) and along the way we seem to lose about £20 in the exchange rate on only $1,500 approx!

Jerseygirl

Best to check with them first though. Usually transferred by the next day.

Pulaski

If I remember correctly you get an option for credit by ACH or credit by wire. DO NOT choose credit by wire, the receiving bank is likely to stick you with a wire fee; ACHs are the (only) way to receive funds and be sure you'll avoid the fees from your bank.

Phoodilicious

Thank you both, appreciated!

Duncan Roberts

FEDWIRE will man $20 from every wire transfer inbound to the US and outbound from the US.

HarryTheSpider

I use Xoom in to my UK Barclays account from my US Citi account. It costs $4.99 in fees up to $2499. Transfer process never takes more than about 25 minutes - I think the very first one took longer. Barclays UK doesn't charge to receive.

Pulaski

But xe, xoom, etc. bypass that, there is no international and/or chargeable wire when using a web-based FX service (unless you select the "credit by wire" option).

Phoodilicious

Definitely sounds like Xoom or XE are the way forward and I have now registered an account so that I can test out costs, exchange rate and speed between xoom and my current method. Thanks all for the advice.

Duncan Roberts

Right. I'm talking about wire transfers.

MMcD

[QUOTE=Duncan Roberts;10506372] I'm talking about wire transfers./QUOTE]

But as Bill Clinton once famously said: "It depends on what the meaning of "is", is"......
So too with "wire transfers"....and for anyone who (like me, or like I was) is confused by the term:
Well....as I now understand it (and someone please correct me if I've got it wrong) there are wire transfers (for which the banks charge a fee), and then there are EFTs (Electronic Fund Transfers - which are also wire transfers - but are not labelled as such) for which there is no charge at either end and which go through what's called an ACH (Automatic Clearing House) procedure.

Parenthetically, does anyone else find our increasingly acronym-mad society utterly absurd.

ian-mstm

OMG, it's HTG true that TLA's are a PITA. YMMV.

Ian

MMcD

aka: LOL
And on that note...back to thread subject:
XE
Defined here:
http://www.acronymfinder.com/XE.html (YGTTTFC - Your Guide To The 21st Century)