Transferring Money

[MrsDarby 0]

Hello,

I have a few questions for those of you who transfer money between US and UK bank accounts. My husband has an account in the US, and he also has his account in the UK. He needs to transfer money from his US to his UK account on a fairly regular basis.

Does anyone else do this? If so, how do you transfer money? What have you found to be the least expensive way of transferring money?

Is it expensive to transfer through what the bank has set up? What about paypal? I may check into that. My other idea is for his mom in the UK to have a check card from his US account. She could then withdraw the money from the account using his ATM card, and then deposit it into his UK account.

Any other ideas?

TIA.

[Toledospod 0]

Hello,

I have a few questions for those of you who transfer money between US and UK bank accounts. My husband has an account in the US, and he also has his account in the UK. He needs to transfer money from his US to his UK account on a fairly regular basis.

Does anyone else do this? If so, how do you transfer money? What have you found to be the least expensive way of transferring money?

Is it expensive to transfer through what the bank has set up? What about paypal? I may check into that. My other idea is for his mom in the UK to have a check card from his US account. She could then withdraw the money from the account using his ATM card, and then deposit it into his UK account.

Any other ideas?

TIA.

Mrs Darby,

I did this when I moved to the US, but it was from UK to the US that I was transferring the money. What I did worked to start with, but had problems later on. I open up a Citibank UK Sterling savings account and a US Dollar savings account in London(that's pretty much the only place that Citibank have branches in England from what I know). I then opened up a checking account over here with Citibank as well. Then all I did was deposit my UK Sterling into the UK Sterling savings account in Citibank UK, transfer it to the US Dollar savings account into US Dollars(without the commission fee that most Currency exchanges charge you) and then did a Global Transfer between one Citibank account and another(in this case, the UK Citibank account to the US Citibank account). There was no charge whatsoever in transferring the money globally and because it was within the Citibank network, it was free of any fees and almost instantaneous. I did all the transfers online and it was very easy.

However, a word of warning, whilst there is no fee to having savings accounts open in the UK with Citibank, the same cannot be said with a UK Checking account or the Checking account with the US Citibank. The UK Citibank will insist on you having your annual income or at least something like £20,000 in the UK Checking account or they won't let you have one(and you can't make any bill payments or third-party transfers from a UK Citibank savings account). Also, you get charged a fee for having a US Checking account(in the US)if you don't have at least $1500 in the account. It's stupid, but that is why most people don't use Citibank and also the reason why after 6 months of using them, I've closed my accounts and gone back to the old method my wife was using when she lived in London.....Paypal.

Paypal is easier, but on top of the currency exchange rate, they charge a fee to transfer the money to another Paypal account in another country. Don't know specifically what the percentage is, but it's on their website and it's not too bad, probably better than paying the fee for having a US Citibank EZ Checking account

Hope this helps! Feel free to PM me if you need any further advice

Londonspod

[ladybutterfly 0]

I have always used paypal when I want to transfer money into a UK account, or if any members of my family wish to transfer money from their UK account into my US account. Paypal does charge a small fee but its not that much. Once the money is in your paypal account you can then transfer it into your bank account free of charge.

[MichelleandCraig 1]

Agree with the PayPal option... M.

[PlatyPius 5]

Sian and I use PayPal. I have a PayPal "Business" account (comes with a debit card). When we need money quickly (more than $300), she sends the money to my PayPal account, and I can use the debit Mastercard to pay whatever it is.

[Lansbury 19]

Hello,

I have a few questions for those of you who transfer money between US and UK bank accounts. My husband has an account in the US, and he also has his account in the UK. He needs to transfer money from his US to his UK account on a fairly regular basis.

Does anyone else do this? If so, how do you transfer money? What have you found to be the least expensive way of transferring money?

Is it expensive to transfer through what the bank has set up? What about paypal? I may check into that. My other idea is for his mom in the UK to have a check card from his US account. She could then withdraw the money from the account using his ATM card, and then deposit it into his UK account.

Any other ideas?

TIA.

Use a commercial currency broker. They invariably charge the lowest fees, if any and give you the best exchange rate. There are several to choose from.

I use MoneyCorp www.moneycorp.com to have my pension transferred from the UK to the US on a monthly basis and also for the occasional one off transfers. As an example my pension is on a fixed rate 2 year contact at $1.92. This was arranged when the market rate was $1.95 and the rate from my bank was $1.87 and both those were just for a one off transfer

If you search Google you will find other companies and it is a case of finding one which suits your needs, as they have varying minimum amounts which can be transferred and have slightly different costs.