Overseas payment not fully arrived

I set up a USD payment to a foreign bank account via Halifax.

They showed the denomination in USD. Say 500.

They then said the exchange rate to £ which wasnt great but what you going to do.

Lastly you were charged £10 for sending it.

The total showed 500USD and then the sum in £.

The company I paid are now saying I only sent $450 (for example).

Anyone got any ideas? Its quite a big company so I doubt its a scam?

Some banks/apps use a shared fee system, so the £10 doesn't cover all the fees, the receiving bank also takes a bite.

International transfers used to be considerably more expensive, but with the availability of apps etc, they've made it a lot easier and cheaper (mostly). Not suitable for chunky amounts and don't mistake banks with good debit/credit card currency exchange rates as the same for small transfers.

Its $70 short. Thats a lot.

I didnt want to pay by paypl because they added 5% on for fees.

So the options I was given was paypal +5% or send a bank wire transfer which had no fees.

If they have been charged a fee at their end then its not my problem.

It sort of is, if you want whatever it you're paying for!

FWIW the last two UK-US payments I have done have had problems of one sort or another. Once short, once delayed.

We received some payments from Bermuda recently. They were short and I had to get them to adjust.

I am sure there is an easier way of doing foreign payments, but we don't do enough of them to have found it.

Personal or business payments. If personal, HSBC global money debit account is the simplest thing in the world. Will send and recieve in all currencies, at a pretty decent rate with no fees. I regularly use it for USD.

Transfer fees will mostly apply and range £5 -£30. Recipient bank fees, which the transferring bank will deduct and pay them directly. Easily £50-£60 in total.

ALL banks will have a flag on the transaction 'do you want to pay all fees and how-either netting against this transfer or from a named account'.

You have to open it online, but it is ready instantly and you recieve a physical card. Can use it for GBP and have regular payments inbound etc. So it's pretty flexible.

Yes, inadvertently

It's the bank at the US end that are taking a fee merely for receiving a foreign payment. Not all do this, so it's a bit of a lottery.

About 10% of my employer's annual purchases[1] are in USD (mostly USA, but many HK and China), so about $1.5 million in total. For most I use an intermediary foreign exchange service (currently Convera), which is supposed to manage the entire transaction from Switzerland to the destination, including all fees to send and to receive. However some US suppliers still complain of not receiving the full amount, mostly those not experienced in dealing with overseas customers.

But many experienced US-based suppliers include a $20-$30 charge on their proforma invoice to cover their own bank fees to receive the money. I always thought this was a bit cheeky, as it's not our problem that their bank charges extortionate amounts just to receive funds. But the suppliers concerned said like it or lump it, so we cough up and take it into account when setting our sales prices to customers here.


[1] Another 50% are in EUR (mostly Germany, Italy, France), where the SEPA procedure means a small fixed charge (CHF 0,30) for any bank transfer dated the next day. The rest are domestic payments in CHF so are included in our overall UBS banking fee package.

If there's a larger payment(s) to go then i'd look at getting an FX specialist in place.
Better rates and lower costs..