Cheers
Working in Switzerland, just been paid into Postfinance current account. Want to move a sizeable chunk to UK bank account with Santander... do I pay a one off charge to PostFinance here, or will I get stung again by Santander in the UK ? ( And, yes, Santander are a crap bank but I got stuck with them when they took over A & L and haven't yet found the time to shift all my stuff to a better bank... ).
Can't you choose whether the sender or the recipient pay the charges? I've not done it for a while and it was through UBS at the time, admittedly.
I don't know... But thanks for the tip, I'll ask.
Another option to avoid the banks raping you in charges is.
http://www.xe.com/fx/?utm_source=int...erMoney_HomeTL
Or similar. Do a search on money transfer on English forum there's many of these services to choose from.
When doind a money transfer to a country outside the EU you'll pay a fee, how big the fee is depends on the banks you are using.
You have to possibility to select if the fees should be taken from the money being sent or from the account you're sending from.
Hope this helps.
We haven't really shopped around - just do what is easiest and that is an electronic transfer from our Kantonal Bank to our Lloyds. There is a 4CHF charge from Kantonal and £4 from Lloyds - when making the transfer we picked the option to split the charges. Seeing that they are both our accounts I don't think it makes a huge difference but if you were making a payment to someone else I don't think they would appreciate paying the fees.
Keep meaning to look at these foreign exchange websites to see if they really would make us a savings.
If you're transferring large amounts (let's say over 10,000) then their better exchange rates make a difference. However, they're more hassle to use.
You're also likely to get a much better conversion rate than a bank..Well supposedly
What's the difference between the exchange rate, which I already mentioned, and the conversion rate?
My personal experience.
I used to get stung twice when making transfers to UK from CH.
No matter how much I complained to the UK/CH bank, they always said the problem was at the other end.
If you don't state who pays the costs of the transfer then there is every possibility that both will take their cut which can work out expensive.
I just started stating clearly on the transfer that I alone wanted to pay ALL costs, on this side, and then checked the amount that arrived (checking the rate also) that it added up to the amount I sent minus the CH costs - it worked.
When I filled out the transfer I wrote:
'sämtliche Spesen zu lasten Auftraggeber'
on it and that did it.
Your mileage may vary but it stopped them charging me almost twice as much as it should have cost.
Good luck
I have the 'Plus' set at PostFinance and regularly transfer money between my Swiss account and my HSBC account. There are no fees at either end -- no sending fee at the PostFinance end (free SEPA transfers are included in my 'Plus' set) and no receiving fees at HSBC.
Just to be absolutely certain there are no receiving fees at Santander, you can specific that you (as the sender) will bear all costs. In the PostFinance online banking environment, this choice is offered on the 3rd screen of 'International Transfer' -- you want to mark the transfer as 'ourcost'.
Whether or not there are fees, the bank will take a big chunk when changing the CHF you are sending into GBP at the other end.
The best was to avoid this is by using a dedicated ForEx service such as the one mentioned above from xe.com. The one I have used is the FX Global Transfer service from www.oanda.com . Whilst this takes a little time to set up and understand, if you are sending a large amount or will be repeatedly sending money then it is well worth the extra hassle.
From what I read I think SEPA transfers are always in Euros. Does that mean that for a transfer to the UK you have two points for potential exchange rate losses i.e. CHF>Euro, then Euro>Sterling?
Uh, dunno. I generally don't transfer enough money for the exchange rate loss to be material. I'm not going to go through the hassle of going through a specialist currency broker to save CHF5 in exchange rate variance.
If I'm doing larger transfers, I normally use a service like XE.com, recommended above.
In any case, you can specify the amount of the transfer in GBP, and it will confirm the CHF/GBP rate before you have to commit. You can then point your browser over to another specialist site, get out your calculator, and decide whether to transfer the money via bank or via a broker.
The original poster asked if there were charges at their end from PostFinance to Santander -- I answered how to avoid them. As far as the best way to transfer money back-and-forth to the UK? Plenty of threads available via 'search'.
But it clearly says "Subject to fee" right next to the box you say we should tick. I guess you're lucky because of SEPA but I bank with the Nationwide in the UK and they don't "do" SEPA.
SEPA refers to the area/countries covered by the Directive. The area corresponds to all EU/EEA/EFTA countries, so includes CH and FL for example.
It only includes payments made and received in Euros though. So yes for it to be valid to/from UK and CH neither of which have the EUR as their currency, you'd need to send the money from CH in EUR and receive it as EUR in UK. Obviously an EUR account linked to your GBP and CHF local accounts would help.
An alternative is to open a GBP account linked to your CHF account in CH and send the money from there. You will then save on the exchange hit arriving in the UK if funds are already sent in GBP. There may be a transmissal fee depending on your bank and method and urgency used.
Personally I transfer from my CHF account to my GBP account in Postfinance online. I then send the GBP to my UK account online. As the money is in GBP I'm not charged to receive the money. I would be if sent in CHF. When transferring the CHF to GBP within Postfinance online, I tend to save a few basis points on the conversion, I may not be getting the most competitive rate though.
I do sometimes consider opening an EUR account in the UK to receive free EUR payments under SEPA. My UK bank doesn't allow me to open this online though, and I'm not visiting so often these days, and I don't really need their expensive expat deals. (Opening UK accounts as a non-resident is a hassle thanks to moneylaundering etc.).
So if you want to benefit from SEPA in non-EUR currency countries, send and receive in EUR from/to EUR denominated accounts.
On a side note my UK bank now supports £25k transfers within the UK. Obviously this is not supported to/from CH as it falls foul of the €10k outside EU transfer limit/declaration obligation. Here SEPA doesn't help.
So yeah it's a typical example of restrictive EU "progress" which forgets that other EU laws don't apply to all the countries in the agreement, and doesn't apply to all the currencies of the countries in the agreement.
Wow... thanks for all the advice, I've just transferred a small amount ( CHF 3500 ) from Postfinance, they charged me CHF 22 for 'sender pays all' and they put the amount in pounds on the form ( approx. 2484.00 pounds )
so I'm guessing that will be the figure that shows up in my Santander account..... according to what happens I'll check out all of the other options
over the next week, before I transfer any more....
Thanks everyone.
hey, as said above SEPA is for "euros" only. So if you transfer chf to gbp then it's not a SEPA and they must apply charges.
Also, beware of the "our cost" option in PostFinance because the receiving bank can also charge you some money!!! (read the our cost terms and guidelines). I got screwed once!!!!
They explained that it's about insuring that the "third parties" banks would take anything, but not the "last receiving bank".
For example you have no control on where your money transit from bank A (yours) to B (the receiving one).
So they can do A--> C----> B.
Where C would also take some money off...
crooks, as usual.
So if you select "our cost", Postfinance will charge you 20chf, but also the receiving bank can charge some "processing /admin fees".
Selecting Our cost worked for me paying Natwest, done it several times always 20 CHF. On large sums 50K CHF you will get a much better rate from Post Finance.
Agreed- but the final bank can charge "admin fee", which is not covered by the "our cost" option.
Maybe Natwest did not, a German bank did for me(approx 20euros maximum for a 11 000euros transfer).