Transferring Euros to a UK Bank

[PaulSB]

I've been arranging a holiday to Iceland for my family and two French families. I've paid everything and now need them to transfer their share to me.

Clearly this can be done electronically but the only information I can find is "it's very expensive." My bank, understandably, won't commit to what the French bank might charge.

Anyone got an experience of transferring Euros to the UK electronically? Anyone know if "traite bancaire internationale" is the correct translation of "bank draft" as that could be cheaper.

I'm hoping our friends will be able to transfer in GBP to avoid me paying the exchange costs. We are talking about a maximum of Euro 3000.

Thanks in advance.

 

[martint235]

Possibly helpful, possibly not but I've done it the other way. It cost me £15 to transfer around £1500 to a German account a couple of years ago. It was very straightforward though, I just gave the bank details to my bank and they did the rest.

€3000 may be around the mark where the bank starts asking questions about its origins as well.

 

[Globalti]

Try the informal route. My customer in Sudan regularly owes us up to £200,000 and transfers all the money via the Islamic hawala system, which relies on the 100% honesty of the brokers to work. The money finds its way to our bank account in dribs and drabs via a government licenced money transfer bureau in Manchester and in 18 years it has never failed. Even our accountants trust it now. There are no charges; the agent makes his money on the exchange rates. You can find money transfer agents anywhere there are immigrants who want to send money home to their families; they are the informal version of Western Union.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala

Wiki says: "Hawala is attractive to customers because it provides a fast and convenient transfer of funds, usually with a far lower commission than that charged by banks."

 

[Milkfloat]

Strange as it may be - I find PayPal to be one of the cheapest ways, at least for small amounts. I think it is a 0.4% fee.

 

[vickster]

Possibly helpful, possibly not but I've done it the other way. It cost me £15 to transfer around £1500 to a German account a couple of years ago. It was very straightforward though, I just gave the bank details to my bank and they did the rest.

€3000 may be around the mark where the bank starts asking questions about its origins as well.

I think money laundering suspicion kicks in officially at 10k

 

[Arrowfoot]

The person sending the money thru Banks can indicate that he wants to absorb all charges at their end so the receiver does not incur charges. There are 2 sets of fees (sender bank fee and correspondent bank fee). Its the correspondent fee that you want the sender to absorb as well. The other way is thru the cheaper Hawala system as indicated by Globalti - truly an honour system that has never failed.

 

[Fnaar]

A Nigerian I've been in contact wants to transfer my $2,000,000 African Lottery winnings to me... should I mention Hawala, do you think? I gave him my bank details earlier, and will check my balance later today.

 

[Globalti]

Amazingly the practitioners of hawala are those tall very black Senegalese guys you see selling souvenirs in European cities. They are, apparently, reckoned to be the most honest people in Africa.

 

[Arrowfoot]

A Nigerian I've been in contact wants to transfer my $2,000,000 African Lottery winnings to me... should I mention Hawala, do you think? I gave him my bank details earlier, and will check my balance later today.

The Nigerian scammers will only deal with Banks.They would not dare go near the guys from the Hawala system.

 

[Globalti]

Sadly a Sudanese hawala man who I know recently got scammed and sent $100,000 to a bogus bank account in China. Luckily he realised and was able to stop the transfer but the poor bloke was in bits for a week.

 

[mjr]

Anyone got an experience of transferring Euros to the UK electronically?

Yes. The Single European Payments Area regulations apply to the UK so usually the cheapest banking way is if they send it in Euros as a "shared fees" transaction to your IBAN, the same as they'd send it to a Euros account in another Euro-using country. If I remember correctly, where we get screwed by UK banks is:

• there's usually an artificially-high fee for sending or receiving a Euros transfer - that's allowed by the SEPA regs as long as it's the same fee as a Euros transfer within the UK, but of course few people do that so they put a high fee on it because it's not a key factor in choosing where to bank, unlike in a country that uses Euros;
• the exchange rate for converting EUR to GBP is usually loaded in the bank's favour.

Anyone know if "traite bancaire internationale" is the correct translation of "bank draft" as that could be cheaper.

I'd be surprised if it was. I think the cheapest ways are usually FX markets like www.currencyfair.com and annoying services like paypal and skrill, but they all need setting up to use. With banks, it's usually SEPA credit transfer, or if both banks are co-ops (or linked to them) then TIPANET may still be cheaper but I'm not sure when I last used it.

 

[flake99please]

Could they send a gift payment in GBP through PayPal?

 

[diapason]

I've just put cash in the post. Never failed yet, and saves the ridiculous fees charged by the banks.