Transfering money to and from UK-Spain

hey guys

seen a lot of people with questions about transfering money overseas. the problem is, it can usually take a while weather its a cheque or a international transfer, sometimes expensive too.

now, dont get my wrong im not a fan of this comany at all but what they do does work.

Lets say you have a spanish and an english bank account and want to keep trasfering from one to another right?

Easiest and Cheapest way = PayPal

When i started mine i had to have two accounts as the english one didnt let you add spanish bank accounts, that might have changed. If not though, despite a few verification processes, all seems very easy and hastle free.

The charges depend on the amount and the type of account you have, i would reccommend a premier account.

hope this helps anyone in need of differnt soloution :)

Alex

 paypal is very expensive & use poor exchange rates.

i would not use them for this, also if you want money into a spanish bank it can take 5 working days from leaving paypal before you see the money again.

its only the UK who charge stupid amounts for sending money.

my spanish bank account I can send money to any bank in any country on the same day and it only cost 2 euros.

pay pal is a rip off, think they take something like 2.5 cents off the rate when buying euros. have invested over the years quite often in spain and always use a currency broker. not the one on this site but one that gives me really good tight rates.

If you are making regular foreign currency payments to spain I find the best way to get the most preferrable deal is to use the comparison site SendMoneyHome.org

 Does anybody use Smart Currency Exchange ?

Their rates seem better than Moneycorp, is there a catch?

Woody

Hi

Just transfered a hugh sum of money through smart currency in january, went without a hitch, very proffesional and kept me updated throughout, they also gave me the best rates out of the 3 currency firms i contacted.

Would certainly use them again, if you send me a private message i can give you contact details.

The payment was the 70% owing for an off plan property.

Dave

I have had a great experience transferring a large sum of money from EUR to GBP and thought that I should share it here. I did a lot of research and I found a company called SAT Worldwide (based in the UK) who offered me a really good rate, assigned me my own contact person who explained everything to me in detail. It was an easy, no problem transaction. 

As per comment from user emmaline3,  I too have used this company Sat Worldwide.

I am Spanish, married to an English man and we often need to exchange currencies because we live both in Spain and sometimes UK.

I used the company above twice.  I found that they were very helpful and I believe I received a good rate of exchange for my transaction.

I would recommend them to all.

Nuria Delao-Watson.

 I always use Smart Currency Exchange, never had a problem

My experience - Large amount to transfer from UK account to Spanish bank, arranged with the bank manager in Spain to open a euro account, gave him a UK sterling cheque for the amount . on the spot, he then checked the interbank rate and gave me .002c below that rate for the exchange.. You cant beat that. as the currency exchanges are normally at least .03c below and that can make a lot of difference.

Talk to your Bank manager

There is this facebook thing about mid-market rate for GBP/EUR for a "happy hour" that got my attention. Type in RationalFX on facebook dunno if anyone heard of them?? I usually use my bank to transfer money but I hear I can save money using FX broker, I am gonna have a look at Money Corp and Smart Currency Exchange aswell, thanks!

** EDITED - Removed at Poster's request**

I have transferred currencies many times over the years & until recently always used HiFX which were always very good. However I now recommend theFXfirm, they invariably offer the best rates & no fees, around 4% more than using your bank. Mention my name & they will look after you.

Mike Lord

 Hi all - there are so many threads about this, but I just wanted to say that I've read everyone's experiences, and researched bank charges and money exchange companies, and in the end for my house purchase I went with MoneyCorp.  Because I'm an Eye on Spain member they have waived the charges, and I'm getting (today)  1.24 euros to my pound, with no deductions at either end, and absolutely no charges of any kind.  I think that's pretty unbeatable.  One solitary centimo below the inter-bank rate.

As already stated you should not just accept what you are offered from 1 source. Whenever I move money I ask what rate several companies offer and then go back to my U.K. bank and ask them if they will match the best rate. They always do but charge around £10.00 for the transaction. I am prepared to accept this small charge as I am not taking any chance with liquidity of the companies mentioned on here or elsewhere. It all boils down to not just accepting what is their first offer but haggling over the rate. If the company wants your business they will haggle if they don't then maybe you should not give them your business

I've always used www.worldfirst.com

I work in the Cayman Islands and frequently send money back to the UK and to spain and also from the UK to Spain. Somebody on this forum recommended moneycorp and I did try to sign up but found it a very time consuming process to open an account as they wanted to mail passwordsa and me to call and give security words etc and being overseas working this was very difficult. After a little research I found Worldfirst and opened an account and managed to get verified online without the need for all the postal and extra verifications. When I was up and running I always checked the rates to moneycorp, my own bank Natwest and a couple of other FX companies and found worldfirst were beating their rates by over 1% which is a big difference when I was sending large sums to buy my property and lay down deposits etc.

When I send from my UK account it usually hits my Spanish Santander account next day. When I send from my Cayman Account it is usually 2 days.

For smaller amounts (under a couple of grand I think) they do add a fee of about 10 quid or something but again I found this was standard across all money transfer companies and after a lot of research found them coming out cheapest.

They are usually very responsive if you need to contact them and can be helpful if you have issues setting up ibans or NICs etc.

And no I don't work for them or have any stake, before anyone asks!