How to transfer money to Europe?

Which bank? I've had experience with Barclays and Lloyds

OK, who do you bank with in the UK?

I use HSBC

Could you tell us the bank? Someone might be able to point you in the right direction of the right people within that bank or at least tell you the pros and cons of that bank's service.

As far as cheapest goes. XETrade/Custom House Vantage is the best I have come acorss and allows everything to be done over the web.

(They are exactly the same service but I prefer the XE web interface).

I regulary use them to put funds across to Norway. They offer better value than my bank and allow for the who transfer to be done via the web.

The Co-op (my main bank) does allow for arranging of international transfers via phone or fax but have no online capability. The Co-op also allow regular debits to be arranged (monthly, three monthly, etc.). Many UK banks require you to drop into a branch and/or fill out a paper form every time you need to make a transfer.

I had HSBC transfer about £1.5K to Spain the other day - took three days to appear in the Euro account there and cost £21.00. All done over the phone.

Ineresting, but they seem to need payment by BACS in the first instance

- shame they don't accept debit cards.

Problem is, some people consider 21 quid to be very expensive for the transaction.

I am sure paying £1.00 is expensive to some. I provided an answer to the question - if someone is interested in transferring money overseas what are your suggestions?

What do you pay? What do you consider expensive? What car do you drive?

Both Lloyds TSB and Barclays provide a form that requires lots of detail, e.g. IBAN, SWIFTBIC, etc. If the transfer is for a smallish sum, e.g.

I don't know if this applies to UK branches, but HSBC's offshore branch in Jersey offers a discount on the transfer fee if you carry out the transaction using internet banking. They also offer a further discount if the transfer is to another HSBC office, and if you are a Premier customer transfers are completely free of charge.

Chris

For HSBC there is a service called "WorldPay" this offers transfers for 9 for amounts upto 2000 and if you're lucky may even do the transfer for 7.

They don't seem to offer this service to FirstDirect customers and if you try and find it from their main website they seem to keep quiet about it (or did last time I tried)

There was an item in Which? Magazine (Aug 2005, p. 35) about sending money abroad.

Why not look at getting a Citibank account in the UK, you can then use it in Belgium at the Citibank atms to with draw, it will only cost the currency charge, do it all the time in germany works a treat.

But you also have to include the cost of the return ticket to Belgium to get to that ATM. There are probably cheaper ways to do it.

Sorry if i have missed the point i thought Rob wanted an account he could access in the Uk and Belgium, hence my suggestion

For further information, my bank is HSBC. The recipients bank is KBC.

I just miss the simple days of EuroCheques. Worked a treat in the 80's when I was doing my industrial placement in Germany.

Shame there aren't better systems set up between the UK and europe seeing how closely we are linked. But then I guess they wouldn't make so much money.

Presumably if you are in France or germany etc then paying money into another account in another Euro country should be as simple making a payment from one UK account to another? Since they all have the same currency.

Hear, hear, there is simply no system as simple and effective (for the user) as EuroCheques were.

It's still not simple or cheap I don't think, though it has been improved by the new EU rule that requires that it costs no more than a similar transfer within one country. However I think that has had the effect of making transfers within a country more difficult and/or more expensive.

FWIW, my Spanish online bank account has a transfer facility to any eurozone account where you know the IBAN number, exactly as if the account were in Spain. They charge 1 euro per transfer.

I think this is (sort of) what I was saying. It used to be free (or low cost) to transfer money within Spain, it now costs 1 euro because it has to be the same cost as the cost for transfers to anywhere in the Euro area.