overseas money transfer
Discussion
Hi All. I transfer money to a bank account in Germany monthly, to do this I have to phone my bank every time and they fill in a form and deal with the transfer. This in itself is not so bad, but costs GBP20 a go and involves lengthy Indian switchboard activity which is slowly draining my will to live. Is there a better way?
Edited by jason1788 on Monday 25th September 08:50
Hi,
Depends on the sums but I bet you are getting royally bent over the desk on the spreads as well.
Any specialist FX company will give a better spread than a bank. Forget the charges, that £20 is just a smokescreen to hide the real profit
I'm a broker and I point all my clients to a chap who works at a well established FX house (it's an unregulated business so plenty of cowboys).
Happy to email you his details if you like.
Tim.
Depends on the sums but I bet you are getting royally bent over the desk on the spreads as well.
Any specialist FX company will give a better spread than a bank. Forget the charges, that £20 is just a smokescreen to hide the real profit
I'm a broker and I point all my clients to a chap who works at a well established FX house (it's an unregulated business so plenty of cowboys).
Happy to email you his details if you like.
Tim.
Actually, there may well be a better way. We are developing a system that will have a single fee, probably around £10-20 as a one of cost - view it as a membership if you like. After that, there will be no fee per transfer, just a percentage which will be capped. To make it even nicer, it is instant access - the moeny should arrive at the destination in a matter of seconds and be available as soon as it gets there. Product is in development now but the big issue for us is working out how big the market is. We have a development list of several banking products. Out of sheer curiosity at this stage - would that kind of system be attractive to you? FYI - it is a fully regulated product, developed by a large private bank with full European banking licenses and listed on the NYSE.
But what are the spreads? 
FX, like all instruments are quoted on a two way price. The difference between the buying and the selling price is the spread.
If you were trading FX you would expect to pay 2/3 pips (points) in spread on the major FX pairs.
EG £/$ is currently 18956.1 to 18959.1
Compare that to your bank quote!!!!!
FX shops at airports will charge several hundred and banks often over 100 pips.
This is a huge, huge margin over fair value.
Another very important factor is that unlike Equities, there is no central exchange for FX setting the price. Each liquidity provider will make their own quote and one provider can be points away from another.
With FX specialists you can probably get by with 25 pips which includes physical delivery of the funds in the second currency.
Never, never, never pay commission.
FX, like all instruments are quoted on a two way price. The difference between the buying and the selling price is the spread.
If you were trading FX you would expect to pay 2/3 pips (points) in spread on the major FX pairs.
EG £/$ is currently 18956.1 to 18959.1
Compare that to your bank quote!!!!!
FX shops at airports will charge several hundred and banks often over 100 pips.
This is a huge, huge margin over fair value.
Another very important factor is that unlike Equities, there is no central exchange for FX setting the price. Each liquidity provider will make their own quote and one provider can be points away from another.
With FX specialists you can probably get by with 25 pips which includes physical delivery of the funds in the second currency.
Never, never, never pay commission.
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