Transferring money (cross-posted to the new life in America sub forum)

[sarahandbrian 0]

Hi there,

I appreciate that the question of transferring money to the US has been asked over and over, but I haven't found this specific question anywhere, forgive me if it has already been asked;

I am currently living in the US, and have a bank account here, I am originally from the Uk and still have an active bank account there.

I am hoping to transfer a sizeable amount of money (£20k+), from my Uk bank account to my US bank account in the next week or so.( they are not international branches of the same bank)

, and was hoping to do a straightforward bank to bank transfer as opposed to using a third party.

My question is, will I need to be physically present in the Uk in order to submit the transfer form with signature(not really possible at this time)?, or will I be able to fax a signed form to my Uk bank? , or would it even be possible to make the transfer using online banking?

or should I forget the whole bank transfer issue and look at a different method, the exchange rate and fees of course are important, but right now the most important issue for me is finding a method to do this without having to fly back to the Uk.

Any help would be most appreciated

Thankyou

[payxibka 10,045]

I think it all depends on your bank... Some have stricter policies and procedures than others....

[Jo1973 0]

What I did when I transferred a large amount was to send a fax to my local Lloyds TSB and ask them to transfer X amount over to my account here using the US routing numbers and swift number etc (can't remember exactly what they are called). I was charged 15 quid in the UK and then taxed appropriately by the US bank.

Had no problems either end with it, although Lloyds did ring me to make sure I was aware of the fax that they had received.

[sarahandbrian 0]

Excellent, thankyou, I do hope that Natwest will be as accommodating,

I will get in touch with them, just wanted to see if anyone here had any first hand experience beofre I did make the call, that's very helpful to know.

Thankyou

Sarah

quote name='Jo1973' date='Jun 5 2008, 11:37 AM' post='1901467']

What I did when I transferred a large amount was to send a fax to my local Lloyds TSB and ask them to transfer X amount over to my account here using the US routing numbers and swift number etc (can't remember exactly what they are called). I was charged 15 quid in the UK and then taxed appropriately by the US bank.

Had no problems either end with it, although Lloyds did ring me to make sure I was aware of the fax that they had received.

[no name 1]

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...%2Btransferring

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

Just a heads up -- HSBC were b@stards when I went through the process. I was already in the States, and I was told that if I wanted to transfer everything (which was 15k or so), I would have to come into my branch. Duh! My branch is in London, I'm in New Haven. They refused to let me email or fax an authorisation -- had to be in person. I was using one of the brokers (Interchange FX) and they were very accommodating -- I ended up having to transfer the sum in two tranches under 10k.

I actually ended up having a HUGE fight with call center staff about this, as nowhere on the online banking site did it say this. They refused to put me through to someone in my branch again and again. I said I wanted to speak to someone, anyone in the UK, and preferably in London. Finally, after 3 or 4 calls I was put through to a very nice Scottish lady who listened to me and fixed it all up with doing it in tranches.

[sarahandbrian 0]

Sorry to hear about your difficulties, this is exactly my worry, I can't say that Natwest have ever been especilly helpful in other matters so I don't anticipate this being a smooth ride either, but then I suppose if it was a piece of cake to transfer large sums of money you'd begin to question the safety, however having to deal with call centers in order to make arrangements is never ideal, I look forward to dealing with this tomorrow!

Surely nothing can be as soul destroying as the whole visa process right?

S

Just a heads up -- HSBC were b@stards when I went through the process. I was already in the States, and I was told that if I wanted to transfer everything (which was 15k or so), I would have to come into my branch. Duh! My branch is in London, I'm in New Haven. They refused to let me email or fax an authorisation -- had to be in person. I was using one of the brokers (Interchange FX) and they were very accommodating -- I ended up having to transfer the sum in two tranches under 10k.

I actually ended up having a HUGE fight with call center staff about this, as nowhere on the online banking site did it say this. They refused to put me through to someone in my branch again and again. I said I wanted to speak to someone, anyone in the UK, and preferably in London. Finally, after 3 or 4 calls I was put through to a very nice Scottish lady who listened to me and fixed it all up with doing it in tranches.

[sarahandbrian 0]

Hmmm I just recieved an email from paypal to inform me that they will be introducing new policy in July that means there will be no fee for recieving funds if the transaction is designated a Personal Payment?

Do I understand that correctly in thinking that if I were to try and make a Uk to US tansfer using paypal, ther would be no charge?

or would there be a charge to me as the sender in the first instance?

I appreciate that my US bank will most likely charge for reciept of funds,

Will paypal charge for the sending of said funds to my US bank?, or am I completely wrong in my understanding of this new policy? does anyone else have an understanding of how it might work?

[Thai family 0]

I had a big banking headache today. I would cancel my local account in a heartbeat if we didn't have a bunch of automatic payments set up.

For international banking, if any of you qualify for membership, go for USAA. They have world-wide banking down to a fine honed science and expect their clients to be regularly on the other side of the globe.

Showing up in person is an archaic practice for them. There are other ways to prove identity and the legitimacy of your transactions. They also have the best customer service I've ever encountered.