Exchange rates

[idun]

Could any of you let me know what exchange rate you have been getting via your FX company, bank / building society in the last month when transferring money to France from the UK and on what date you transferred.

ie 1.06 fx company 7 august

Just that, not how much you transferred.

Thankyou.

[Graham & Brenda]

CurrencyFair

17th August

1.1465

CurrencyFair

28th July

1.1415

[tinabee]

CurrencyFair

02 August

1.15

 

CurrencyFair

19 August

1.1494

[:D]

[idun]

And these are the exchange rates you actually got, And how much do they charge to do the transfer?

[tinabee]

[quote user="idun"]And these are the exchange rates you actually got, And how much do they charge to do the transfer?[/quote]

Yes, the rates we actually got. Charge is 3 euros per exchange.

[JSKS]

We use CurrencyFair. In essence they match your sale of pounds with someone else's purchase. So if the Interbank rate is, say 1.15 you will probably get around 1.11 from the bank plus a fee of about £15 to transfer to your Fr bank. With CurrencyFair you'll get about 1.145 and pay €3 for the transfer. This is particularly useful for small sums (eg £300).

The only snag is you need to set up an account (although it is easy to do) which takes a couple of days and then transfer in the £££s which again might take a couple of days. So if you need to do the exchange NOW its not so handy.

Note - the €3 euro fee is for the transfre of the exchanged funds not for the exchange itself (you could Exchange a portion of the sum every day to even out the rate and then transfer the entire amount for one €3 fee).

Have a look:

https://www.currencyfair.com/

[idun]

Well that is interesting. I have often wondered why someone hasn't set up something like this, but apparently they have.

Thankyou.

[tinabee]

[quote user="JK"] So if you need to do the exchange NOW its not so handy. [/quote]

On the other hand, if you are not in a rush, you can transfer the funds to CurrencyFair, say what rate you require and then wait and see if that rate is acheived. Once it it, the exchange happens automatically and you are informed by email. This is what I did to get the 1.15 rate. I have also found that transferring from CurrencyFair to my French bank account happens the next day, e.g. transfer from CF requested friday, funds arrive in French bank saturday.

[Gardian]

[quote user="JK"]With CurrencyFair you'll get about 1.145 and pay €3 for the transfer. This is particularly useful for small sums (eg £300). [/quote]

When something sounds too good to be true, it often is.

Out of interest, I've just checked out the interbank rates for 17/8. For most of the day, the rate was below the 1.1465 obtained and only crept above it (to about 1.148) towards close of play.

Whilst I understand the concept of matching buying and selling clients (which presumably makes the interbank rate irrelevant), I just don't see how a broker can operate profitably on such tiny margins.

Wasn't there a broker in the West Country that was offering very attractive rates and went bust a little while ago?  Caveat emptor. 

[tinabee]

[quote user="Gardian"]

[quote user="JK"]With CurrencyFair you'll get about 1.145 and pay €3 for the transfer. This is particularly useful for small sums (eg £300). [/quote]

When something sounds too good to be true, it often is.

Out of interest, I've just checked out the interbank rates for 17/8. For most of the day, the rate was below the 1.1465 obtained and only crept above it (to about 1.148) towards close of play.

Whilst I understand the concept of matching buying and selling clients (which presumably makes the interbank rate irrelevant), I just don't see how a broker can operate profitably on such tiny margins.

Wasn't there a broker in the West Country that was offering very attractive rates and went bust a little while ago?  Caveat emptor. 

[/quote]

It is not CurrencyFair that set the rates but the clients who want to exchange currencies, hence the rates on offer can change minute by minute. I would imagine that being an online service the overheads are pretty low and the returns achieve due to high volume, small transactions (like eBay when it started). The website states that all client funds are held in segregated client accounts with a global banking provider.

But, you are right about Caveat emptor - with any financial transaction these days, it is up to the user to do their own research and determine what risks they are willing to take with their money.

[idun]

Gardian that was an iffy fx company that let people down. This is between particuliers, so a little different, or it should be. And yes, I too checked on the daily rates, and was surprised.

 ie transferring euros to £'s on 17th August, the daily bank rate was 1.1462 and the fx company gave me 1.155 which was better than my bank would have given me  which would have been approx 1.177 judging by the difference the bank has given me in the recent past. In fact the HSBC used to have a difference of approx 0.015 now it is 0.027 on average. They won't negociate either and their greed is really annoying me. 

When I asked this question I actually expected to see bank/b/sy or fx companies being mentioned, and not this.

 

[Gardian]

[quote user="idun"]

Gardian that was an iffy fx company that let people down. This is between particuliers, so a little different, or it should be. And yes, I too checked on the daily rates, and was surprised.

 ie transferring euros to £'s on 17th August, the daily bank rate was 1.1462 and the fx company gave me 1.155 which was better than my bank would have given me  which would have been approx 1.177 judging by the difference the bank has given me in the recent past. In fact the HSBC used to have a difference of approx 0.015 now it is 0.027 on average. They won't negociate either and their greed is really annoying me. 

When I asked this question I actually expected to see bank/b/sy or fx companies being mentioned, and not this.

[/quote]

Are you sure about these numbers?

[idun]

Yes, I'm sure, remember all our income is in euros and I transfer back to the UK. Which ever way one goes using banks or FX companies then we customers always lose out.

[Rabbie]

As usual it's the people transferring money in either direction that lose out. The banks, FX etc always do all right with their margins on the exchange rates and their charges for actually transferring the money on top. It will always be more advantageous if you can find someone trustworthy who wants to transfer money in the opposite direction but that is easier said than done.

[idun]

We lose out, people tranferring the other way lose out, so this currency fair sounds like a decent idea.

I was just wondering what exchange rates people were getting,  the variations between banks and fx companies, going in the other direction to my usual transfers.

[Richard51]

The rates offered by CurrencyFair are better than, say, Hifx (which is listed as offering the best rates by moneysavingexpert) - certainly for amounts up to £5,000.  There are also no fees on smaller transfers which (with Hifx for example) can make a big hole in your transfer.  The only disadvantage for me is that you have to transfer funds into your CurrencyFair account before you can buy.  This transfer into your CF account can take from several hours to a few days during which time the rate could move against you. 

Mrs R51

[Oboulez]

On 18th Aug I got 1,134 for transferring £5001 to France from HiFX with no charges. The headline rate was something like 1,152 at the time. The reason I mention the sum involved is that if you transfer less you get a worse exchange rate, plus transfer charges.The good thing with HiFx is that you buy the currency at that exact moment. I have been lucky the last couple of transfers as within a day or so the £ had dropped back 2 or 3 cents again. My current benchmark (as I suspect may be also be the desired exchange rate for the UK treasury) for transfers is 1,15, as whenever it gets above this it seems to drop back a few cents very quickly.