I will be moving to Zurich in the next 5 weeks and will have to send money back every month to support family in the UK. Can anyone advise the best and most cost effective way of sending cash back to the UK?
Many thanks
Hi
I just set up a standing order with my Swiss bank to transfer monthly automatically. I can suspend it and then reinstate as needed. I’m not saying it’s the cheapest as I haven’t tried other methods. But it costs me CHF5 at this end and £6 at the other in bank charges no matter how much I send.
So costs u about £9 in total , I can live with that!
Thanks for response 😃
Well, there’s no way of knowing what the exchange rate will be for the transfer so you may lose or gain on that. But you’d get something similar with other methods I guess. I get the exchange done at the UK end, but I suppose you could ask your Swiss bank to exchange the amount first before transferring. Depends on where you’re likely to get the best exchange rate. But so long as I have a rough UK figure to work to I don’t worry. If I lose one month I sometimes gain on the next so it’s no big deal for me. Check with your banks for their rates though; mine come from UBS and Barclays.
Check out:- https://transferwise.com
I have used this several times, quick and much better than high street bank rates.
You should use a money transfer/currency exchange service. I'm not sure which has the very best rates but they're all better than what you'll get from your bank and the difference can really mount up. You can set it up once and they'll transfer the same every month.
Take a look at the costs from transferwise.com. May be cheaper than your bank, depending on how much you are transferring.
I make transfers regularly, and use to use various FX brokers, but transferwise does beat them hands-down.
Transferwise is usually very good value. Especially true for moving money the other way (my UK bank charges GBP25 flat rate, transferwise is a few %, so much better for smaller amounts).
You should also be ready to answer regulations questions...once you pass a certain amount per year from Switzerland to UK.
They will ask you to proove your identity and some others stuffs. At least, happened to me. Check with your bank when you open an account here maybe.
I think people should look into CurrencyFair instead of Transferwise (or at least seriously consider it).
TW charges a flat fee only up to 200 GBP converted, then it is 0.5% of the amount, whereas CF charges as low as 0.30% (can be 0.15% for you) if you use the marketplace (i.e. offer your own rate and wait for someone else converting the other way to take it).
CF charges about 3 Euro for the external transfer itself, which can be negligible in larger amounts. I don't know how much TW charges for the external transfer itself.
Here it is straight from the site:
"When you exchange with other people, the fee is only 0.15%. Each customer in the trade pays an average of 0.15% giving 0.3% in total."
If you use the instant conversion in CF you get either 0.40%, or the 0.50% you get in Transferwise:
"When you exchange with CurrencyFair, the exchange rate fee is 0.5% (0.4% for the main currency pairs)."
Refer here
https://www.currencyfair.com/feature...exchange-fees/
As far as I understand the actual rate you get at either place is not guaranteed to be the "mid-rate" as both work on a "peer to peer" system. If TW has a significantly larger userbase you may in general get better rates despite the higher fee.
Right now, using the calculators in both sites, I got 30000 CHF giving:
33740 USD, in TW
33748 USD, in CF (this is not using the marketplace, where in principle you can get a better rate).
It is not a big difference I guess.
That's likely to happen very early on, be prepares to send a certified copy of a passport & an original utility bill or bank statement.
Some good answers here thanks everyone!
Just be aware of the credit risk (usually a few days worth) you take when using the various F/X brokers. For smaller / regular amounts this may not be so much an issue. But for larger lumpsum amounts, this could be a siginifant increase risk.
Try to transfer every two months - that way you reduce the bank charges. The more you send, the better the rates you get with currency brokers, so bulking it up is a good idea (credit risk notwithstanding).
Check your bank rates though - I used a currency broker, and sometimes I get a better deal through UBS (to the UK).
This thread is really useful as we'll still be paying a UK mortgage, thanks OP and those who've replied!
Hopefully with your Swiss salary, you can pay off your UK mortgage in a few months
Haha! That would be good, I think a little optimistic though!
Very useful post. I tested using transferwise the other day based on this and I saved 60CHF (better exchange rate and £1 fee only). This was on a relatively small amount of money and it was just as fast as my UK bank who charges a standard fee of £25 to transfer.
Another useful site is - http://www.ukforex.co.uk - has very good exchange rates and no charges for transfers over 3k