Qube

I was hoping to send some money back home, I've done XE trades from the UK to the US before I moved here without any trouble but doing it the other way seems a bit of a bother. I can't seem to do an online transfer overseas with TD Bank, and the customer support wasn't very helpful either. Sounds like I'll need to pay a $40 fee to do a wire transfer (I only set up a $10 trade just to make sure I had all the details right!).

Has anyone processed a payment through XE and TD Bank back to the UK? Did you manage it ok without having to pay stupid fees? The banking here seems like it's still stuck in the dark ages...

Pulaski

That doesn't sound right to me, though I have no experience of banking with TD, but it is a slightly oddball bank, being an offshoot of a major Canadian bank. Although it has US operations it is primarily controlled from Canada.

Michael

I have a TD Ameritrade brokerage account which uses TD Bank for it's money market accounts. Although it's money market accounts have routing and account numbers just like a normal checking account, third parties can't initiate ACH (Automated Clearing House) electronic transfers from that account. This is not uncommon for money market accounts in any bank. Even if initiated from the account, some banks won't allow ACH transfers to international accounts and recommend either a check or a wire transfer.

However somehow Capital One online is able to initiate both out going or in coming transfers to any type of account in any bank but most other banks can't.

I don't understand why these restrictions are in place but it may have something to do with your problem. There are regulations restricting the number of monthly withdrawals from money market and savings accounts but I don't know of any regulation that limits ACH transfers except to the same withdrawal limits per month.

I suspect some of the banks place restrictions on ACH withdrawals since if it is initiated from another bank or to a international account, the bank is liable for anything that may go wrong for up to 60 days and therefore doesn't want to do something that could cause liability and not charge the customer a fee. Although money market and saving accounts currently pay very little interest, at on time they paid a much higher interest rate where as checking accounts normally didn't pay interest or paid very low interest and so banks were more flexible with what could be done with checking accounts since they were basically getting free money and therefore accepted the liability in case something went wrong.

rpjs

When I first set up the ability to transfer to XE / Custom House from my US bank (Chase) I ended up having to talk to someone in the anti-fraud department before they'd let it be set up. I confirmed with them that I was perfectly satisified that XE were kosher and that I'd used them before they had no issues about enabling transfers. Once that was done I've had no problems at all doing US -> UK XE trades at all.

So I'd suggest you try customer support again and see if you can talk to someone with the wherewithal and authority to enable online transfers to XE/Custom House in the US. The current TD Bank TV adverts seem to suggest they are choc-full of helpful real human banking advisors...

Bob

Go into a branch, they should be able to help out and be more clued in than the customer service line.

Qube

Thanks all, have been planning to get to a branch but work has been hectic, will probably have to be Saturday morning. Will let you know how it goes!

Qube

I ended up going into the branch, they only do wire transfers ($40 fee), which would have made the $10 test transfer a bit of a waste! Thankfully I managed to sweet talk the people at XE to cancel the transaction without having to pay a penalty ($35) as I told them I would be doing a larger trade soon... I don't know why it's so bloody difficult going from the US to UK, it's so unbelievably easy doing it the other way!

Pulaski

They might have blocked xe.com but all US banks use ACH debits, it's how utilities pull payments directly from their clients accounts and how "mycheckfree.com" is possible! .... Time for you to move to another bank, I think!

Qube

Yes I think so, or at least for transfers. I'm heading back on Thursday though so not much time to faff about, I guess I'll set the other trade up and initiate the wire transfer instore. The $40 fee will still work out cheaper than using anyone else in New York as I suspect the exchange rate will be lousy!