Transferring money from UK to German bank account

What do you guys think is the best way to shift money from someone's private UK bank account (Barclays) to a German account at Sparkasse? Would it be the easiest to write a cheque from the English bank and pay it in here or actually make an overseas transfer? Are there any other alternatives? It is just a one-off transfer and nothing business related, just shifting private funds. Does anyone have experience with that? Thanks for any advice (sorry, can't pay anyone for help)

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I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think the banks here will accept checks. If they do, it will be at a high cost.
I've accepted bank transfers (from ebay) from Belgium & Austria, and to my knowledge they were free just like a normal überweisung. You will need the IBAN & BIC codes from your german bank, and then you can do it over the internet.

Is it quick to get that IBAN No. or do banks cause a usual fuss about those thing?

While bank transfers are hypothetically free within the EU, that is not necessarily the case outside the Euro zone. Your bank in the UK will likely charge you an "exchange fee" to go from £ to €. This can sometimes be hefty, depending on your bank, so ask them first. I've personally cashed a $ check at Hypovereinsbank, and they only charged me €5 for the deposit of a foreign check (no exchange fee). So your best bet is to check with both banks to decide which is cheaper.

http://www.xe.com/fx

(XE.net / XEtrade) Nuff Said...

How to use BIC & IBAN's

Whats wrong with cash?

Costs nowt to take it out in Blighty and now to pay it in here..

You will get reasonable echange rate here anyway..

G

Yeah, but unfortunately I am not going to Britian in the next couple of weeks and none of my mates can bring the cash over.
But I managed to find my IBAN and BIC codes, althouh still wondering whether just writing a cheque and paying it in. The fees with Sparkasse are normally pretty small.

This is an excellent topic. I've been here a month and only today checked my bank statement. I get stung something fierce by Barclays and First Direct by simply using my UK bank cards to get money from the hole in the wall.

If you wanna withdraw Euros from a Barclay's account you can use the Deutsche Bank cash machines for withdrawal without commission. Took me a while to find out about that one, too!

How much are the fees for processing an overseas cheque?

Problem with UK internet banking is they really havnt caught onto the BIC/IBAN route yet, however you can still issue written instructions to you bank via fax etc to do the transfer. IBAN/BIC is normally within 3-5 working days, similar times with clearing cheques.

IBAN/BIC is normally found here in germany on the top of your bankstatement

Poots

I'm not sure about Sparkasse, as is needed for the inquiry above, but Hypo only charged me €5 to cash a ~$1000 check. I know that exchange fees for UK bank transfers are usually more than that.

Ask your UK bank if they offer the Worldpay service. It costs 9 GBP to transfer up to 3200 EUR. The bank needs the IBAN of your "foreign" account. For larger amounts, my bank uses a different system (is it called Swift?) and charges me 25 GBP. The exchange rate is 3.5% better than you get through the hole-in-the-wall.

Also you have a choice normally whether to transfer in Euros or Sterling! You can either get your UK bank to do the exchange, or just send Sterling and let Sparkasse sort at this end.

You should be able to do this stuff online but the banks still seem to be behind the times - although I met Sparkasse bank yesterday, and you can get permission for online transfers to any overseas bank these days - which is handy for doing stuff the other way around!

Now we just need the UK banks to get their act together.

p.s. If anyone wants to do larger amounts PM me as I have an old friend that works at a UK based FX company. You exchange at very close to spot market rates and with no charges at all.

fax an EU transfer request to your UK bank, stating IBAN and BIC.

@Boomtown

That only works if you have already authorised your bank in the past to accept your faxed instructions!

ah, ok, possibly true. Write them a letter then maybe

I have this exact same problem all the time. I get paid in pounds and constantly need to get money over here. I thought that these guys at XE would give me a good rate, but I've signed up for their service and its basically shit.

The exchange rate they give you is, if anything, only slightly better than the bank would give you on any day of the week. Its really not worth talking about. But the real charges come in when you have to wire money to their accounts. Your bank will charge you for this. Then they send you a draft which you have to physically cash. I've given up on it.

People are saying to write a cheque and it only costs you 5 euros, but I wonder what exchange rate you are getting? I can go to my bank in London and they charge 20 quid for a transfer, but they give almost exactly the market rate. If you are moving a large amount, this becomes more economical.

I still haven't figured out how IBAN numbers work. Either way, the problem always comes down to the exchange and what rate you're going to be given. I am going back to the UK next week and I was just going to get a load of cash and get it exchanged here, but again, the rate they give you is no good.

If anyone knows a good way to do this, please let me know, cause it causes me no end of trouble.

If anyone needs pounds, and wants to do a private exchange at www.xe.com rates, I would be well up for that. I have done this before with a few people and it is so damn easy, and gives you a really good rate.

We used InterchangeFX to move money from the UK to Germany - they gave us a very good rate, but it is probably only worth it for larger amounts.
You could take a look at Citibank - there aren't that many branches here but you can open UK sterling and euro accounts in the UK and have a euro account here - you can move money instantly and for free between your accounts internationally.

I have thought about opening a Citibank account like that, but now I don't have anything recent with a UK address on it, I doubt whether they would let me open an account.

Cheers guys! I rang up Barclays today and they just transfered the money for a charge of 10 pounds. I am not too sure what the exchange rate was, but it seemed alright. The lady from Sparkasse phoned me up today and left a message cause I sent them an email last night. Didn't have a chance to talk to her but I enquired about international transfers etc, hopefully it should work out in the future. At least they rang back immediately and provided good customer service and don't charge fees, I am quite chuffed with that!
I had a look at that XE-net thingy, looked like complete bollox to me to be honest. Any third-party solution is a crap solution. If you have a good bank they should provide the service you need IMHO!

But thanx for all your help and advice, much appreciated! Great thing TT and all members exist!
*group-hug now if you feel like it!*

On a similar note: I transfer monthly some money from my German account to my UK account.

I get charged 9 Euro each month.

Someone told me recently that there was a new law that forbids the banks to charge when you're transferring inside of Europe?? Anybody know anything about this?!

If you use the BIC andIBAN No. you shouldn't pay anything. I send money to England every month and pay nothing.

this has been discussed before.

i had to pay £14 each time to get funds from bank of scotland to stadtsparkasse.

i dont think there is a law against it. you're just lucky if you dont have to pay.

p.s. i used BICs and IBANs all the time but was still charged.

Then you were conned mate. I have transferred varying sums between bank accounts and the most I have been charged is about 1,50 euros (the sum I transferred was substantial)

AS long as you have the BIC and the IBAN then you are OK. If you need to transferred via express (i.e., within 24 hours) then be prepared to pay a lot

Hmm...I have the code thingies too but I've always paid 9 Euros every month! And I've just looked at the website of the bank I transfer to in England and there it says it costs ten pounds to receive money, which is around 15 Euro...so it's all a bit confusing now..

Very bizarre. I transferred money from Sparkasse and now from Citibank.. Never been charged more than a Euro or so

There is usually an option when transfering to another country whether to split the costs or pay them all yourself.

@Crawlie: mine is Citibank too! Hmm...

With Deutsche Bank, I can transfer anything upto (I think) around 12,500 EUR, and its only a 1,50 EUR charge. BUT I found that it was more expensive to transfer from England to Germany, luckily I do not have to do this anymore, but I do think the UK banks rip you off more.

Has anyone transfered a large sum (many thousands of GBP) from UK bank in GBP to German bank in euro recently and has experience of rates to share? Lloyds TSB want to charge me GBP30 for the priviledge of sending my money here, and I'd like some bargaining facts about what other banks charge. For large sums they will use their commercial rate (currently 5 cents above the tourist rate) and above 37500 euro they use the market spot rate. This has a bigger effect on how much I get than the fee, but the fee seems high.

Thanks in advance.

For info I need to move GBP20k from the UK to Germany and here are the rates I've been offered: Lloyds TSB gave me a rate of 1GBP=1.4602, they'll also charge GBP29 for the priviledge. A nice man from Interchange FX said their rate was 1GBP=1.4775, an improvement of 345 euro + the fee on the Lloyds offer. Citibank Germany offered a rate of 1GBP=1.49 euro if I transfer the money in GBP and they do the conversion but this can't be true as the current daily rate is 1.4848 but the girl said she was sure... I'm not sure what to believe about that one.

Edit: I got hacked off with XETrade as they don't publish their rates unless you have an account with them.

If you can get €1.49 please ask if they would mine doing an extra £100M for me?

She is talking shite.

Mid rate is about 1.4840 but of course it is a moving market!!

http://www.fxsolutions.co.uk/Article2.aspx...icle=liveprices

As it happens you compared a "broker" to a "bank" and the difference was about 1.7 big figures. This is kinda as I might have expected. The better figure is about 75 cents away from the current spot market which seems very fair for that amount. I reckon an average bank will be 1 to 2 cents away from the spot rate. The differences are not huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

To add a final note to the story: I used InterchangeFX and found them to be excellent. The service was great, they answered the phone immediately and were able to patiently answer all my questions, the advisors are all helpful, the transfers were all executed quickly and it was all but free as using internet banking I was able to transfer my money to Interchange in bits avoiding a 20GBP fee for a CHAPS transfer. When all the money had cleared at Interchange they executed the transfer at 1GBP=1.4775 euro (the pre-agreed contract rate) which removed the risk of blindly executing whatever had happened to the market rate after the few day's delay. Interchange did not charge me a late fee even though my transfers were delayed (by Lloyds being stubborn). All told, excellent service.

Just to add my few cents I tried numerous FX brokers but like you I had contacted a German bank as well, Sparkasse. They were quoting rates well above the spot rate although they could not do forward contracting like exchange brokers. On the day I transferred the money I checked out the rates agains with various FX brokers but no one could match the German bank. The exchange went without a hitch and although they charged me 400 euro the difference in rate I received more than compensated for their fee. I got 0.673GBP = 1 Euro.

Just my Two cents too, and what I've found to be the easiest way.

Next time you are in the UK, sign up for a Nationwide Flex-Account (You will need a UK address for this - but parents/friends may help), they give you up to two maestro cashcards (1 acc holder, 1 partner), the Nationwide do not charge fees for overseas withdrawls, you pay the standard exchange rate. , which is handy for getting paid in Sterling and getting the cash out in Germany. It comes with online banking too.

Details HERE

What is the "standard exchange rate".. in most of these situations, they might not charge you a fee to get money out overseas, but the exchange rate will be crap..

Agreed the standard exchange rate will be no where near the spot exchange rate especially for small sums. Credit cards even with fees still seems to be the most cost effective way if wishing to withdraw funds overseas although I see my new UK bank card has the Maestro symbol on it which I think means I should be able to withdraw cash at the bank's normal exchange rates.

Just to address djgrazy's point there is a huge difference in drawing out some cash from the hole in the wall and transferring and converting a large sum in GBP to Euro.

Just to also point an earlier misnomer banks here will also accept checks but add about 0.002 to the exchange rate.

For Germany -> UK

I must admit I took a DB BestKonto mainly becuase I can transfer upto 50k euro anywhere in europe for free... the exchange rates seem to work out pretty close to the live rates...

all in all it was the easiest way for me.

For UK -> Germany, I actually brought cash with me

Banks give you crap rates for cash as well though..

Youre wrong Hutcho my German bank gave a better rate for an electronic cash transfer than any FX Broker could and when i wanted to exchange a GBP cheque they added 0.002 to the rate while FX Brokers would not even touch it with a barge pole.

MY ADVICE CONTACT YOUR GERMAN BANK AND COMPARE IF EXCHANGING LARGE STERLING SUMS TO EUROS. YOU MAY FIND LIKE I DID THAT YOU WILL GET A BETTER DEAL THAN GOING THRU FX BROKERS

I haven't found anything easier, safer or cheaper than XE trade for transferring funds to a foreign country. There is setup time involved of course, because they want to make sure you're not a money launderer, but once it's up and running, it works fine.

I wanted to transfer quite a bit of money a while back, and I signed up to XETrade. It was a hassle, but thought it would be worth it if it could save me a few hundred. In the end though, I was quite disappointed. Their system is hard to use - it doesn't give you the exchange rate until you've almost done the deal. That is crap for such a service.

Then came the rate they were going to give me. Compared to the rate I ended up getting using the guy Johnny English suggested, XETrades rate was crap. I would have lost about 1000 euros on the money I was transferring had I just gone with XETrade. It's definitely worth shopping around.

I was recently charged 19GBP to transfer a 3 figure sum from HBofS to Sparkasse.

WTF is that all about. It used to be 14GBP, which was shocking enough.

Can anyone top this? I'm starting to get annoyed just thinking about this as I gather some people pay bugger all, if anything.

I lived in Germany a few years ago and used to transfer a few hundred every month from Volksbank to HSBC. It was free in 2004 and then in 2005 they added £9 charge each time. When I spoke to HSBC they said it was the German bank charging me... funny it was always £9.00 exactly though (Volksbank said it was HSBC). However, they stated it was free when less than £100 being transferred. So I transferred many Euros100 each month; for free. I think I may have got a worse exchange rate that way!?!

So; moving back in a few weeks. What is the best bank account to have in Germany and the best to have in UK to transfer some of my salary Germany - UK each month?

I've tried World First (the guys that TT promotes) and they actually lived up to what they advertised.

Hello

I have just the opposite problem. I make monthly transfer from my UK account to my German one. I tried various procedures, use nowadays moneybookers, it seems to me the best choice with regard to losses and duration.

But! Nevertheless I think the best way would be direct contact of two people with opposite direction of money transfer.
Also. I search for companion to try such technology:
I pay pounds on your UK account from my UK account and you pay Euro to my German account.
Exchange rate - ECB immediately before the transaction - naturally before transaction contact (e-mail, phone etc.) should take place.

Contact diogen.99@googlemail.com