International transfer charges despite IBAN & BIC

I transferred Euro 3500 from my Irish bank account to my Dresdner account, and sure enough Euro 3495 arrived, 5 Euros taken off for "charges"

I thought that with IBAN & BIC international transfers are supposed to be free under EU law? I want to ring my bank and complain (I like complaining). But I like complaining even better when I'm sure of the facts.

my bank charges me more than that for IBAN transfers

except it looks like you have been charged €1005 and not €5

Iban with bank of scotland are GBP 14!!!

I think Lloyds Bank is closer to €30

Christ that's a rip-off, if they're part of the SWIFT network they aren't allowed to charge more than the standard €12.50 for amounts up to €10,000.

what are the rules then? Lloyds told me the charge was unavoidable and every bank made the same one as it was what SWIFT charged them for the transfer.

And I still thought that IBAN/BIC transfers are supposed to be abolutely free. No EU lawyer going to jump in and tell me I'm being cheated??? (of 5 not 1005, edit sucks doesn't it BTC?)

@ BtC

I think they're adding their own charges on top, SWIFT charge €12.50 for international transfers, it's on the forms IIRC.

*penny drops*

Which I suppose they fill out for you.

they call it an administration charge at the B O S

And that's not all what the thieving bastards take. Despite having computers that run faster than a fast thing your money leaves your source account, vanishes for a few days, then reappears at your destination account. During those few days it has earned somebody, not you, some more.

Insist on the actual form, fill it out yourself and they can't add on an admin charge.

They are thieving c**ts.
Go through Wiki for "European bank transfer" and you can get a link to the EU regulation on this.

I have been charged €5 as well for transfering money from my DB account to my Irish Bank account, ok its pretty much money for nothing for them as I transfered the money on line but its a handy service and I have mistakenly taken money out of the wrong ATM here and been charged €5 for the pleasure so I guess its not an over the top fee.

of course any fee from a bank is a pain in the arse.

As it is a monthly transfer as DD, I can't fill in the form each time: I did ask them whether that could be done back when I was arranging this and was told no. It is fucking ridiculous really but I wish I was in the Irish bank that only charges 5.

I've seen this too. How to find out though? If you go in to a bank and ask to do an international transfer unless it's to a different arm of the same bank you'll be offered a SWIFT transfer (at €12.50 for up to €10,000).

At least my bank in Germany charges the SWIFT fee only, you guys with UK bank accounts are really being ripped off.

BtC, I have a standing order (Dauerauftrag) from the Stadtsparcrapper to my UK bank account.
Charges: 0 - after I kicked them once.

Haven't ploughed through it all yet but this looks like a start. One relevant point so far: the transfer must be in Euros to be free. So initiating from the UK might complicate things a bit.

Well my transfer from Ireland was in Euros with IBAN/BIC.

Well done that wheel!!!

Some bank kicking gonna happen.

Welcome to the world of UK "free" banking!

The official EU page is here. Loads of information, guides etc..

What Bank are you with in the UK ? NatWest charge me something like 8 quid everytime I transfer from my Sparkasse to my UK account !
They say it's normal cos they're are not in the Eurozone...

cheers.

Dan

Thieving banks aye. What gets me is that when I transfer funds from the states I´m also charged a fee by the receiving bank here!

Dan 84 I bank with HSBC.
They charge me nothing, zero.

I transfer the money in EUR from the Sparkasse with a standing order every month.

There is no "work" for the UK bank to do, the money arrives in EUR and gets put on my account in GBP at the daily inter bank rate.

I don't work for them but HSBC seem the "least worst" of the UK big banks.
NatWest are a bunch of thieving c***s. Pardon my French.

It's been a few days since I last mentioned Nationwide, so why not: They also don't charge to receive IBAN transfers.

A tip for those being charged fees for EU transactions by the Dresdner bank:

I recently set up a standing order to transfer money from my German Dresdner bank account to another EU euro country. Normally this should be completely free and the bank employee verbally confirmed this.

2 weeks later, I got a statement from the bank saying they were going to charge me 29 euros for the transaction - what the hell?!

A trip into the bank and a few arguments later, they admitted they had made a mistake and it should be completely free - ha! Turns out there is a line on the form "Zusätzliche Weisung für das Kreditinstitut" that should have been filled out with "Achtung EU-Standard-Gebuhren Frei" or something to that effect. Their stupid system can't seem to tell if a country is an EU euro country without this!

So if you are trying to do an EU transfer, use their online banking or make bloody sure they fill out the form correctly. Next is to try and get my 29 euro back

19GBP now.

fuckers.

oh and about 35euros phone bill if you try and arrange a transfer over the phone for 20mins

As this is an old thread, I am wondering if anyone has any more recent experiences with transfer charges.

I want to transfer some money to the UK, I have all the IBAN numbers etc & will do an on line transfer from DB to Royal bank of Scotland, I have looked all over the DB website but can't find any info on charges or lack of, anyone know if there is a charge for this, I will transfer less than €1,000/

Thanks

RBS charges me 12 quid on every transfer I make from here to there. So you need to check both sides.

We should all now be part of SEPA, the Single Euro Payments Area, which is supposed to eliminate these fees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

Having said that I haven't managed to get it to work yet: even from my UK based Citibank Euro account I'm still getting charged for transfers. Citibank tell me it's the fault of the target bank (I've tried Hypo and DB), apparently their SWIFT codes are incorrect.

Anybody else had any luck with this?

Thanks Deccie, maybe I won't bother, I am certainly not paying 12 quid, it would be cheaper to mail my mum my RBS cashcard & have her draw the cash out. If I have to contribute to the sponsorship fees for the 6N the least I want is a ticket!

Deutsche Bank will not charge you for the transfer. RBoS are not supposed to charge you, but because they are scum they might. I regularly transfer from DB to Nationwide and am never charged and receive a very good exchange rate from Nationwide.

Right, did a bit more looking & found this on the RBoS website
<LI>

QUOTE

Cost - payments up to and including £100 or currency equivalent are charged at £1. Payments of over £100 or currency equivalent are charged at £7 each

I actually didn't think to look there before as I just assumed if there were charges they would only be on the senders end...yes I know I shouldn't assume.

Thanks STB, I don't have a nationwide account just RBS, will check to see what others mum has though.

My transfers from DB to Bank of Scotland are free of charge...never checked how good the exchange rate is though...

Dmc do you have a regular account with them or some kind of international one, and are you transferring Euros?

Got charged 12.50 for receiving an Irish Euro denominated cheque into my hypo account , is it different for cheques does anyone know?

Transferring Euros (and it has to be euros, not pounds) by Internetauslandsüberweisung from my normal DB Giro type account to a BoS current account (and just to be clear, I do mean Bank of Scotland, not the Royal...in response to your "will check to see what others mum has")

From the DB Internet Banking pages

"Weltweit in 179 Länder und EU-weit mit IBAN und BIC zum Inlandspreis (bestimmte Kriterien vorausgesetzt) überweisen"

SWIFT transfers should be free, but you will have to pay charges for paying a foreign cheque into your account. That €12.50 sounds about right.

Aha, maybe we have to pay for the Royal then I thought that BoS was now part of RBoS??? Anyway I have just emailed them to ask, will see if I get a response. My comment about checkin on my mums other accounts was to see if she had nationwide, I know she has a halifax account...anyone know if they charge??

Well Halifax are part of BoS (making HBoS, which is different to RBS), so if BoS don't charge then Halifax probably won't. Make sense?

Halifax and Bank of Scotland are the same group...so should be free too...

Edit: like STB said

@leky, I regularly transfer from DB to HSBC and there's no charge, but i do the transfer in Euros. As STB says, if you can transfer in Euros, there shouldn't be a fee, even with RBS (I think). I am sure I'll be corrected if I got it wrong though

Ok just checked the Halifax & they don't list any charges for receiving, just £19.50 to send!

Space cadet, the RBS website actually says they charge £7 for receiving, maybe it doesn't apply to IBAN transfers or I am just being thick & reading it wrong...anyway this is what is says...RBS I would be transferring euros from my account with DB to my mother with RBS.

Another note, if anyone has a UK address RBS has a sweepstake to win tickets for the F1 at Silverstone next month, you don't need an account with them (you won't win anyway :-), just a UK postcode.

Well I have just received this response from RBS re charges using IBAN & transferring Euros:

Leky - why not post a cheque to your mum? 70 cents postage.
Otherwise you will have to pay because in the EU it is only
Euro to Euro accounts that are not charged extra.
German Euro to UK GBP accounts costs as does UK GBP to
German Euro.
Incidentally, If you know someone in the UK who you trust
and who wants to transfer money to Germany - you could ask
him/her to pay your mum in GBP and credit his/her account in the EU
with EUR. I worked this one with my son who wanted to transfer
EUR to the UK, whilst my UK pension needed to be transferred here.

Can you imagine that I was sending Euros corresponding to 25 pounds from Deutche Bank to NatWest, and those bunch of ... took off almost 6 pounds for this???
It was for a yearly subscription fee... and the outcome was incredibly ridiculous... both for me and for the institue who was supposed to get the money. We kept exchanging emails for days to find out whose bank was the idiot. Now I know... It wasn't mine.

Next time I will send them cash, in a sealed envelope, instead. Or maybe contact a pick-up service to make sure that freaky banks do not steal my money on the way to its destination.

Cheque, what's one of them Anyway it's no big deal really I will just have to go to the bank, I was just trying to avoid the several treks in to town as there isn't a Barclays near me and I'm pretty sure there is around a £250 a day limit or something?