Can I pay a dollar currency cheque into a UK current acc?

[Ari]

I did bits of work worldwide and normally get paid by bank transfer straight into my account.

A new client in America has sent me a cheque instead, made out in dollars. I don't want to try and get them to do a bank transfer at this stage as don't want to appear awkward and jeopardise the possibility of more work (that's a conversation for five jobs in when we know each other better).

So, what's going to happen when I rock up at my bank with a dollar cheque to pay into my current account, are they going to accept it? (I've done a search of the bank website but they don't seem to have that information).

[kambites]

Natwest will certainly let you, although you have to go to a branch in person.

[marshalla]

Most of them will - but they'll hammer you with conversion charges and processing charges.

[Ari]

Brilliant, thanks. No problem going to the bank with it and I guess I'll have to swallow charges on this one and try and get a bank transfer if they use me again (fingers crossed!)

[Mr Pointy]

kambites said:

Natwest will certainly let you, although you have to go to a branch in person.

And they will give you an utterly abysmal rate for the pleasure of doing so. Last week they charged me a rip off rate of 1.6897.

[andy-xr]

I'm paid in a different currency, the bank charges me £7 to make the conversion

[Ari]

andy-xr said:

I'm paid in a different currency, the bank charges me £7 to make the conversion

I'd be very happy with that.

I'll find out later!

[The Moose]

andy-xr said:

I'm paid in a different currency, the bank charges me £7 to make the conversion

That's all well and good, however at what rate?

If they charge £7 to do the conversion but charge a punitive rate you're a lot worse off than you should have been.

Biggest legal con 1 commission free currency exchange!

[andy-xr]

The Moose said:

That's all well and good, however at what rate?

If they charge £7 to do the conversion but charge a punitive rate you're a lot worse off than you should have been.

Biggest legal con 1 commission free currency exchange!

Whatever it comes to in order to get to the £ amount according to my salary

[kambites]

Yeah, simply heading into a bank with a cheque certainly wont give you a particularly appealing exchange rate. For a one-off conversion it's probably still the easiest way to go though, unless it's a huge amount of money.

[Ari]

No, sadly not! It's a few hundred quid.

I'll give it a go.

[wibble cb]

Bear in mind it will still need to be sent back to the host country where it was issued in order to clear, the funds will not be cleared funds for about 6 weeks( my father sends me GBP cheques I have to clear through my CAD account)!

[joefraser]

wibble cb said:

Bear in mind it will still need to be sent back to the host country where it was issued in order to clear, the funds will not be cleared funds for about 6 weeks( my father sends me GBP cheques I have to clear through my CAD account)!

In my experience this isn't the case.

Worst case scenario is 6 weeks, the two banks I use (one of which I work for) provide the service much quicker normally- it's generally around 2 weeks.

Exchange rate isn't great and as mentioned some will charge...

[Dodsy]

I used to regularly pay $ cheques into my Natwest account. I had to fill out a form that said I could have the money immediately credited to my account but that if when presented to the US bank it bounced I would have the money immediately removed again plus have to pay some fee or other.

This was a couple of years back and the rate wasnt too bad , I guess they have realise that they can give you a bad rate and charge you as well!

[iambeowulf]

Mr Pointy said:

And they will give you an utterly abysmal rate for the pleasure of doing so. Last week they charged me a rip off rate of 1.6897.

Do you mean 1.4897?

£ hasn't been that high against the $ since September 14.

[The Moose]

iambeowulf said:

Mr Pointy said:

And they will give you an utterly abysmal rate for the pleasure of doing so. Last week they charged me a rip off rate of 1.6897.

Do you mean 1.4897?

£ hasn't been that high against the $ since September 14.

If you have a cheque for $1,000 USD and the middle rate is 1.54863 (as it is right now), your $1,000 is worth approx £645.73 (GBP).

However, if they charge you a punitive rate (which they will) of in this instance, 1.6897, you only get £591.82 for your same $1,000.

So, they've made £53.91 on the trade. If they started with USD originally, they will have exchanged that at a punitive rate to their customer of (say) 1.40753, so those pounds (£591.82) only will have cost them $833.00.

That's how money is made on foreign exchange with no commission charge - it's how far off the middle rate they think they can charge and get away with it.