transferring money .

Hi. I'm Ray.   First time I've posted.  Here's my question.  If companies like moneycorp get you the best rates and do everything free with no fees, how do they make any money?

This is a good forum have already picked up some good advice.

Ray.

They usually make their margins by offering you rates that are better than high street banks but still with a very small margin built-in to make for their company.

As they broker by transferring hundreds of thousands of pounds, euros and dollars every day they get a better exchange rate, this allows them to pass a percentage over to the consumer or business but still make profit for themselves.

It simply boils down to how many naughts you are trading in, and most of these guys are trading on the markets with lots of naughts!

N.B. Hifx have now got an online money transfer facility which gives you an even better rate than with one of their brokers on the telephone. You can actually watch the rate refresh on your screen every few seconds and hit your 'buy' button when you want to, securing the exact rate you see!

Try crown they are usually offer some of the best rates I have found compared to others, but they do charge £25 for bank transfers to Spain where as Hifx do it free but there rates are usually weaker so it depends how much you are exchanging. Crown will also post the money to you free at your home address.

Hi all,

Another poster said it right, what they do is trade off the same interbank rate that the banks trade at, but take a smaller margin.  On average, I have found most brokers try to take 1%, so if the interbank rate (if you google gbp/eur) is 1.17 the will offer around 1.1583 to start with... Broker I use only takes 50 pips (so would give me 1.165) every time.  they also have an online system and although it gives the same spread, whenever I speak to him direct he tries to match me up with any other trades he has in order to get a better rate. Great service, great rates and highly reccommended!

don't worry, they all make money, just much less than the bank, in my experience the spread will vary with volume, but they usually base it on 1%, although this can increase for small amounts. I have found a broker that will give me a fixed spread of 50pips for any volume (unless it is tiny) which makes life easy, they always tell me where the market is trading when i trade (yes, i do check!)

 If you just want to take money out of a hole in the wall in Spain use a Nationwide card. Last week I went every day, maximum seems to be 300 Euros and evey transaction was above 1.17 and on one day I got 1.18! Considering these are very small transactions I am very happy. Before we went we used crown and got 1.13 for a large amount of money. I ordered that 2 weeks earlier. 

Has anyone recently transfered funds over using one of the money exchange companies? Did you compare them and which company gave the best rate on the day?

Regards,

Allan

Travelex is no. 1

Hifx is reasonable.

Sometimes good to compare one against the other depending on amount etc

But you need to be awaremost FX companies pay fees to introducers and that can impact on the rate you get!!!!

The Travelex rate appears to be lower than other comapnies like Money Corp, Currency Solutions, Currencies Direct etc. I am looking at larger sums for completing the purchase of a property - any experience of these other companies?

Regards,

allan

Your best option is to open an account with 2 providers (that costs you nothing) and on the day you need to do the transfer call up and haggle over rates.

Don't use the online facility for large sums.

In terms of efficiency Travelex are the best.

We used Global Currency Exchange when we completed

Best rate and hassle free

Now for sending smaller amounts we tag on to their monthly transfer and still get the good rate

(Having said that for a large one off tell them you can get it a point cheaper elsewhere)

This is just an opinion based on my experience!

I started using Currencies Direct some time ago and today wanted to transfer 800 sterling to my account in Spain.
I was quite taken aback when the best rate they could give was 1.10 when the current exchange rate is 1.17.
They said they could only give the commercial rate to amounts over £5000.

I'm sure when I used a previous broker that I got a much better rate (in the above example, maybe 1.16).

I presume everyone else who uses CD have experienced this - I think I may look around for an alternate broker to get a better rate for my hard-earned money. Any suggestions ?

Dave

DaveAilsa

When we transfer small amounts with Global Currency Exchange they tag them on to there month end transfers and we still get a good rate

Spookily our place is on the golf course at Valle del Este, Vera and Globals office is in Mojacar Playa, also Reading not far from High Wycombe - small world!!

In response to what was said earlier about HiFX rates on screen. This is very misleading. Sure you can see the rates changing on the screen but when you think you have secured the rate it doesn't actually do this. It's only when you do the transaction that you are given your rate which is normally different to the rate you think you secured! It's very sneaky and I wouldn't be surprised if they amend the rate ever so slightly in their favour. It may not make them much for one transaction but over thousands of transactions a day it probably builds up to a healthy pot.

Sounds like another HiFX scam to me...

Hi, Just to add my two penny's worth.

I've just transfered our living expenses for next month on to our Caxton euro card, got 1.178 when the interbank rate was 1,198, didn't think that was to bad, there are no fees or charges either

S

Hi

How much does it cost to use the Caxton Euro card please

Hi Fred

There are no costs to load it or spend it, use it the same as a debit card to buy goods and services and get cash from the hole in the wall, In fact there are no costs at all, they must make there money from the spread on the rate. I know that they run the card in conjunction with the Newcastle building society.

I wouldn't be without mine now.

Steve

Thanks Team GB

The card is only for UK residents and I am not

 Kev2006n,

"maximum seems to be 300 Euros" I use Nationwide and, on the advice of a friend, I found that you can withdraw 300e on each card on the account! So if you have two cards on the account you can get 600e a day! I'm pretty sure you can't do it in the UK though. When you have max'd out on the daily limit over here then thats it!

Tony.