Correspondent Banks and Swift Codes?

I have done transfers from time to time over the past 5 years, a normal bank transfer usually costs 10 to 20 pounds and takes between 1 and 3 days.

Never had any problem in either direction.

My experience differs.

One's own bank has no idea of whether the destination bank will or will not make a handling charge and under the laws of at least some countries, that instruction prevents it. This was the advice I received from someone with experience, and it was correct for me.

Tony

Austria.

Tony

"C. A. La Varre" wrote in news:Mdc1b.66914$ snipped-for-privacy@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net:

In my experience (when wiring money from a small town in the USA to some small town in China) the best bet was to find a bank who had a branch both in China and in the United States. I was then able to perform a quick, reliable and cheap domestic wire transfer for USD $5.00 to the NY branch of the Chinese bank, and since they're hooked into all the other banks back in China, they got the money there (internal to the company) the next day for an additional USD $10. They did not take a % of principal. International wire transfers into China can take weeks and weeks, if they arrive at all.

You may wish to consider something similar.

Perhaps you could use PayPal? Or some other online payment mechanism? Traveler's Checks? Cash? What about setting up a checking account with a debit card issued in the payees name. Then you can DHL the card to the payee with the PIN, and use it again and again (just deposit to the domestic account and your payee can take out the cash wherever they are).

I send money from UK to various EU countries, usual cost to me is about

11GBP with the receiver paying about 15 Euros (depends on the country)

Sums vary from 1K to about 60K.

A key point is that you must give the IBAN and Swift number of the receivers account to your bank.

The EU has already investigated the high charges and the Euro Zone bank are all cutting their charges at high speed but using lack of information as an excuse for high charges unless they have both the above numbers. (as always though they are not exactly advertising this fact)

The only point I am not sure about is if IBAN and Swift numbers also relate to personal bank accounts, you will need to find that one out if it is relevant.

Hope this helps

Andy

This link is a useful way to find out what a particular bank's SWIFT code is.

Chris