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money transfer/ regular transaction


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hi to all,

could someone please recommend a good money transfer company that they have personal experience of ? i am trying to sort out a regular transfer from sterling to my french bank and have emailed several companies and not received replies which doesn't exactly install trust in their abilities.

as they say, a recommendation is worth its weight.

many thanks

 

monty

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Moneybookers is a very good process, good exchange rates and low transfer fees, however:

Delay of over a week between your UK and French banks

There is a limit of the amount you can transfer each 90 days, no problem normally, but we are currently trying to transfer a reasonable amount due to the sale of our house, I now have 5,000€ in there account I cannot transfer yet.  Am chasing this up but it means further delays. 

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We use NatWest's Relay service for a monthly transfer and other payments, very quick and has always been reliable for me, and good exchange rates. I like it because the transfer is handled by the bank where the sterling is kept, thus removing one potential source of errors. Some will say the £10 fee is too expensive, but it's worth it to me and a lot cheaper than trying to pay sterling into a French bank account yourself.

The potential disadvantage with this and many similar services is that, thanks to those international anti-money laundering agreements which often crop up in these discussions, unless you have an arrangement with your British bank you have to set up the transfer in person, in Britain. That's no problem for me as we have direct contact with the branch manager and I am very often in England; but I appreciate that it could be difficult for those who spend all their time in France. But with a monthly transfer, once set up that's it.

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morning,

thanks everyone for the advice, i have done some searching at the moment i have a money transfer company asking for 28 pounds for the transaction and my own english bank wants the same roughly, i have already used my bank for the transfer of the funds for my french house, i am interested in a monthly transfer for the conversion of a salary from the uk and the delay of the money going from the english to the french account of around four days would cause a problem i think, the higher charges of these money companies and my bank ( woolwich) are probably because they are the same day transfer ?

i have looked into a euro/ sterling account but these seem to be limited to certain bank hole in the walls in foreign countries.

 

monty

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Hi Monty,

I am in the same boat, I have been using Currencies Direct for the last 6 months to transfer my pension. they were charging me £7.50 for the pleasure plus almost insisting I pay another £12 for some document that lets me know where my money is? Anyway, the 6 month forward contract is up and It looks like I am now going to use WorldWide Currencies.

They do not make any charge for the transfer, only making their money on the difference in exchange rate between market rate and what we get. Yesterday they quoted me 1.4573, the market rate was at that time about 1.4683, this seemed better than others I have been with, HIFX for example.

Money goes into my UK bank on the 1st, S/O set up for it to go out same day, once it's with the currency house, usually takes a day or 2 to get to french bank. You need to register with them before they can do anything for you, usual ID & utiltiy bill etc.

Don't be paying any transfer fees now days as there are many, many currency houses all after our trade. Moneycorp said they would waive my fees if I went with them just to get my custom, so if a currency house has a particular service that suits you, tell them that you can get the same service without charges at ....., they will most certainly pull out all the stops to get your trade!

Regards,

Bob

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If you ae receiving a private pension you might consider contacting the administrators of the pension company. Several of my friends have private pensions and they are paid directly to their French bank account for a very small charge and at a commercial exchange rate. I also believe, but don't know for sure, that ex government employees have their pensions adminstrated by private companies now and that money can be paid direct. My brother in law was in the fire bregade and his pension is paid direct to his bank in Spain. I don't know if this is the same for others. I have no knowledge of state pensions.
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hi everyone,

 

thanks for all your advice, wiil get on and contact those recommended, it is a transfer/ change of salary from the uk and it was just the companies i have already contacted have not really been that efficient in their responses, which kinda makes you a little worried handing over large sums regularly into the abysss of the electronic world, a recommendation is peace of mind.

again many thanks to all,

 

monty

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Do note that the money transfer companies are not regulated in the same way as banks, so if anything did go wrong you could be in a difficult situation. Not that we have ever heard of anything going seriously wrong with the better companies in thousands of transactions, it has to be said. We don't wish to dissuade anybody from using any of these companies, most of which are highly professional and reputable. Just something to be aware of.

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Hello

I am new to this forum, so will have lots to ask and little to offer as I have only lived in France for the past 3 months.  However, I have held a French account for a number of years and I always use XE trading.  They are based in the states and I have found them extremely competitive.  They can be contacted at www.xe.com Signing up with them takes a bit of time and they are highly security conscious, with the amount of money laundering going on its a great comfort and worth the extra bit of effort.  They charge a flat fee for arranging the transfer  regardless of the amount and you get a fantastic rate.  i.e if the market rate is 1.46 you get 1.45.  You can buy online, so if you have internet banking then its ideal moving money from your UK account to XE then XE to your French account.

Hope this is of use.

Dotty

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I use Currencies Direct's Overseas Regular Transfer Plan. The minimum monthly amount is only £150 and all transfers are free. They also charge no commission and offer a really competitive rate of exchange. All i had to do was set up a direct debit from my UK account and then let Currencies Direct know how much i wanted to transfer each month. The company that Redcap refers to in an earlier reply is actually Foreign Currency Direct.

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Yes Lottie, you are correct, I had meant to qualify that but forgot. There are so many of them now. I have just, (for this month anyway) used Worldwide Currencies for £1000, market rate at 1.46271, they gave me 1.4420. Could I do better? Trouble is you have to register with them before they will quote you, which is annoying.

Regards,

Bob
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  • 2 months later...

Hi Dotty,

XE does offer a very simple service that allows people to access and view current market exchange rates online. It is important to point out that currency brokers buy very close to the screen prices quoted on XE and can therefore offer any price under that and still make money. Where the screen price was at 1.46 and your buy price was at 1.45 a broker could quite easily have given you 1.4550. How do you know that you are getting the best price without getting a comparison.

Regards

Mike

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