What is the cheapest way of paying money into an international bank account from UK?

Disregarding cost for one moment, you have to have an account with a particular bank before they will do a transfer for you. For about half the cost banks can get a bankers draft for you made out on a Peruvian bank but you will have to post this out yourself. Eric

Yes, thanks. I forgot to mention that I am looking for an expeditious payment method also. It would be just simple and easy if PayPal would let me withdraw to a Peruvian bank, but they don't.

One off or regularily? If the former, consider another method like sending cash, amazon gift certificates or similar.

How about sending £100 worth of traveler's cheques? If you can get them commission-free it shouldn't cost any more than the price of the postage to Peru.

Chris

Thanks Chris, but I was looking for a kind of same-day method, like PayPal. Not specifically that the recipients gets cleared finds immediately but they at least see the transaction confirmed.

Sure, I could send travelers cheques, I can send cash in US dollars (their main currency), but it's all too slow.

When I've wanted to send money to Europe (Euros) in this sort of situation I've always ended up back at using the post, either registered with cash or travellers cheques. Any other method seems either a *lot* of hassle (e.g. PayPal can be a bit of mucking about for the recipient) or expensive (for the £100 sort of amount) or both.

As long as it's a payment and not a deposit then travelleres cheques are a good bet, trouble with travellers chewues is that a returned deposit ends up (in my single experience) being a real hassle if it's returned.

American Express used to do a very cheap same day arrangement where you pay cash into your local office, and a designated someone who can prove identity at a designated remote office can take the cash out.

At the time I used this service about ten years ago it was much the fastest and much the cheapest way of shifting money abroad. And you didn't have to have an AE account. My son had had all his money and half his gear stolen while travelling abroad. The only problem was that he didn't take his father's advice seriously to move immediately and rapidly away from the AE office for a considerable distance, checking for followers, in order to get clear of the muggers who hang around such places.

"Da-ad! I'm not an idiot, right? I *can* look after myself!"

He went to the phone box across the road to tell us he'd got the money, and was mugged of it while on the phone to his mother...

I believe that either HSBC or NatWest (don't know which - sorry) allow transfers to other countries completely free for up 100 / month.

I am not sure if this only applies to international student accounts though.

AMO