'Best' way of paying into Euro bank account

[bigandclever]

I need to make a payment from my GBP current account into someone else's Euro current account.

What will be the 'best' (for me!) way of doing it? In total the payment will be Euro 3500. I can, of course, just make the payment and take the bank's conversion rate and fees, but I'm curious if there is another way that will be better.

From what I can see, from HSBC to BankOfIreland will cost me £30 transaction fee, and the exchange rate is 1.198521; both bits seem expensive to me.

[digger_R]

Even Western Union may be cheaper than that. If it's a one off then you could try to see if someone like Travelex will do it.
If it's a repeat transaction then I would use a dedicated forex broker Hifx/Num1 currency etc.

I'll give you a rate of 1.25 as I work in NL and need to move money the other way but you don't know me from Jack ...

[walm]

The £30 is ok. The exchange rate a joke.

[Mr Whippy]

Are HSBC generally fairly competitive on transfer exchange rates?

I had a bunch of Euro > GBP the other month and got about 76p/euro which was a bit poor really but iirc the trading difference was about 77p/euro at the time any way, but I've got more due and would like to improve things if possible.

It seems silly but you really can save yourself quite a bit of money if you gamble when to send an invoice, but also possibly lose some but it seems to always go up a bit after a dip in the short term

Dave

[The jiffle king]

I would go to UK forex fot that sort of sum. They will give you a better rate than 1:19 as well. You can specify the bank account it goes to as well. Takes a few days

[bigandclever]

The jiffle king said:

I would go to UK forex fot that sort of sum. They will give you a better rate than 1:19 as well. You can specify the bank account it goes to as well. Takes a few days

That looks the business, thanks

[j3ffers]

Look into HiFXOnline, as recommended by those moneysavingexpert.com folks. Saw 1.26 recently

[The jiffle king]

one watchout is just to make sure you get visibilty from the other end that it has arrived. It can take a few days. I´ve used UKforex, but there are other options out there.

[ViperDave]

I use www.xe.com to send money to the US. Favorable exchange rate and with the correct delivery methods, its free, I can set up a transfer on Monday and the money will be in my Wells Fargo account on Tuesday.

eta tonight's rate at xe to buy euros is 1GBP = 1.25 EUR, for reference the mid market rate is 1.27

Edited by ViperDave on Friday 17th August 19:29