International Payments

[PetrolTed]

I make periodic payments to overseas journalists who write for PH. Currently I use Natwest Relay payments and this costs me £12 per go to transfer anything from £100 upwards.

I read somewhere that there are international payment services (bank to bank) available online that are much cheaper.

Has anyone got any recommendations in this area? For me it's as much about saving money as it is about filling in silly paper forms for my bank each time I want to make a payment.

[egomeister]

Would paypal work out cheaper?

[PetrolTed]

Maybe. I'd rather do bank-bank though rather than via credit cards (and I'm not a fan of Paypal).

[Magic Torch]

I know there's a Canadian company that's got the US sewn up moving into Europe very soon.

They charge a very small amount, ie £1.

A colleague is helping them, can't remember the company name so I'll e-mail him. But, you're right there are cheap online methods somewhere.

Sorry that doesn't help much.

[neil135]

Well thats not too bad Ted i pay £15 with Barclays

[PetrolTed]

Yep, I've been paying £18 for a different type of payment for several years until a bank clerk said "You realise you could use relays for this?"

What frustrates me is form filling though. Ridiculous in this day and age.

[neil135]

Good news for me is i do mine online and it takes 5 mins

[jaker]

how long do these relay payments take?

i use SWIFT payments, and they are a lot more than £12!!

[PetrolTed]

neil135 said:

Good news for me is i do mine online and it takes 5 mins

With who?

[PetrolTed]

jaker said:

how long do these relay payments take?

About a week I think.

[thepeoplespal]

PetrolTed said:

Maybe. I'd rather do bank-bank though rather than via credit cards (and I'm not a fan of Paypal).

I'm not a real fan of having a lot of money in a paypal account, but none the less having experienced the hassle of using a bank to transfer dollars to our Canadian suppliers in which it took an inordinately long time to appear in our suppliers bank account and our supplier thought we were messing them about, it was a no brainer - We started to use paypal to transfer the money to our supplier and haven't looked back.

I leave the cash transfers to the missus, but I'm nearly certain that you can pay via a debit card these days, rather than a credit card. I know we don't leave any money in our Paypal account, given the issues of paypal freezing accounts that I've heard of, but none the less that route is definitely cheaper for most transactions and can be done online.

Just my 2p

[neil135]

PetrolTed said:

neil135 said: Good news for me is i do mine online and it takes 5 mins With who?

Barclays business master online its all internet based and i get free banking apart from same day payments which are £15 (includes international)

The system save all the details of who ur paying so it takes minutes

[walking hormone]

Alliance and Leicester do a service with a flat charge of £5 per transaction no matter how large and once set up it can be done on-line.

If you can't find details on the web then drop me a line as I've got the forms on my desk at the minute for our company to set it up.

Cheers

WH

[cannedheat]

Thought about sending via western union? ok, so outside the banking network but the money is collectable within 10mins of being sent. Your still looking at about £12 to send £100 though.

[simpo two]

I think PayPal at approx 3.5% is the simplest way of sending money to anyone anywhere in the world (most countries). Banks simply aren't interested in sending a few quid round their big shiny systems, and it takes days.