£'s to $'s

[thejoz 0]

How does that work, exactly?

[minnietheminx 0]

Since Im with XE, when I set up my account I did it with the primary bank account being my one in England. This would be where payments will be coming from. Then, when youre ready to move money over, you put in the details of the destination bank account (which will be the one that I would have set up once I have moved over) and then money gets transfered over.....its all done online. Of course, your fiancee can also transfer money over whenever she wants to your bank account using this method.....she would just put the destination bank account as yours. I'm also planning to keep a chunk of money over in the UK rather than transfer all of it in one as this way I can make use of a high interest UK savings account.....then just transfer it when I need it.

[diesel1 0]

Since Im with XE, when I set up my account I did it with the primary bank account being my one in England. This would be where payments will be coming from. Then, when youre ready to move money over, you put in the details of the destination bank account (which will be the one that I would have set up once I have moved over) and then money gets transfered over.....its all done online. Of course, your fiancee can also transfer money over whenever she wants to your bank account using this method.....she would just put the destination bank account as yours. I'm also planning to keep a chunk of money over in the UK rather than transfer all of it in one as this way I can make use of a high interest UK savings account.....then just transfer it when I need it.

Which UK bank do you recommend for high interest rate savings in sterling?

Edited December 23, 2007 by realtor 1

[mustang-sally 8]

Since Im with XE, when I set up my account I did it with the primary bank account being my one in England. This would be where payments will be coming from. Then, when youre ready to move money over, you put in the details of the destination bank account (which will be the one that I would have set up once I have moved over) and then money gets transfered over.....its all done online. Of course, your fiancee can also transfer money over whenever she wants to your bank account using this method.....she would just put the destination bank account as yours. I'm also planning to keep a chunk of money over in the UK rather than transfer all of it in one as this way I can make use of a high interest UK savings account.....then just transfer it when I need it.

So you can set this up in advance? I have yet to look at the other sites but always use XE for quick conversions when im trying to convert £-$ in my head. I may have to transfer some money ahead of my move so I really need to be looking at this now.

[minnietheminx 0]

Yep. I'm moving over in the summer (hopefully) and thought I would get the ball rolling, so set up my XE account last month.

As for high interest savings accounts, I know that Abbey have an eSaver Direct which has 6.40% AER......generally though, the best rates are the 'online savers/esavers' within each banking company. If you only want to invest £3000 or less a year, then Alliance and Leicester have a 12% interest account (Premier Regular Savings account).

[mustang-sally 8]

OK, just filled in all my details for InterchangeFX. They are closed until after boxing day so I will await a phone call soon after. They seemed to be the best option for what I want.

Edited December 23, 2007 by mustang-sally

[broma25 2]

I am looking to transfer small amounts to start with probably around $200 at a time, just enough to allow me to pay payments on my UK credit card. How much charges would I incur doing this and is it worth it for such small amounts. I would of course be saving to transfer larger amounts to hopefully accumulate enough to pay it all off but initially I gotta start small.

Any advice??

Thanks

[ddkm 0]

I am looking to transfer small amounts to start with probably around $200 at a time, just enough to allow me to pay payments on my UK credit card. How much charges would I incur doing this and is it worth it for such small amounts. I would of course be saving to transfer larger amounts to hopefully accumulate enough to pay it all off but initially I gotta start small.

Any advice??

Thanks

if you plan on doing smaller amounts, then im not sure if companies like interchange will even take it...i was told the minimum transfer was £500.

I would definitley recommend unsing Citi Bank (as this is what i have done to transfer small amount of cash over several times a month since the summer.

http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking...p;merchant=citi

They sell it as a Savers Account but in essence it is open to anyone who wants to be able to access cash at cash points in UK and USA. They dont charge anything for the transfers (Interchange charge £15 - this is fine on one-off big sums, but regular low transfers will get stung by this charge) and they have as good an exchange rate as anywhere.

Definitely worth a look!

[Jmaster911 0]

Try XE.COM, I used them today to transfer £20,000 to my wifes account in the US. It takes a bit of setting up but once it is I find it really quick

[RosemarieL 0]

One problem I ran into with transferring large sums (£5000 and up) was that my bank required me to authorise the transfer in person at the branch. This meant that I had to transfer the money to the exchange company for them to hold until I am able to set up a bank account for it in the US.

[broma25 2]

I am looking to transfer small amounts to start with probably around $200 at a time, just enough to allow me to pay payments on my UK credit card. How much charges would I incur doing this and is it worth it for such small amounts. I would of course be saving to transfer larger amounts to hopefully accumulate enough to pay it all off but initially I gotta start small.

Any advice??

Thanks

if you plan on doing smaller amounts, then im not sure if companies like interchange will even take it...i was told the minimum transfer was £500.

I would definitley recommend unsing Citi Bank (as this is what i have done to transfer small amount of cash over several times a month since the summer.

http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking...p;merchant=citi

They sell it as a Savers Account but in essence it is open to anyone who wants to be able to access cash at cash points in UK and USA. They dont charge anything for the transfers (Interchange charge £15 - this is fine on one-off big sums, but regular low transfers will get stung by this charge) and they have as good an exchange rate as anywhere.

Definitely worth a look!

Thank you!!

[ddkm 0]

I am looking to transfer small amounts to start with probably around $200 at a time, just enough to allow me to pay payments on my UK credit card. How much charges would I incur doing this and is it worth it for such small amounts. I would of course be saving to transfer larger amounts to hopefully accumulate enough to pay it all off but initially I gotta start small.

Any advice??

Thanks

if you plan on doing smaller amounts, then im not sure if companies like interchange will even take it...i was told the minimum transfer was £500.

I would definitley recommend unsing Citi Bank (as this is what i have done to transfer small amount of cash over several times a month since the summer.

http://www.citibank.co.uk/personal/banking...p;merchant=citi

They sell it as a Savers Account but in essence it is open to anyone who wants to be able to access cash at cash points in UK and USA. They dont charge anything for the transfers (Interchange charge £15 - this is fine on one-off big sums, but regular low transfers will get stung by this charge) and they have as good an exchange rate as anywhere.

Definitely worth a look!

Thank you!!

No Worries!

[walkies_a 0]

I have used XE.com before and had an excellent experience with them. In fact I am transfering money with them again at the moment! You get the best rate and it costs nothing to deal unless you want to rush it through. I placed a review on moneysavingexpert.com. I have pasted it below. Hope this helps for any newbies to this!

Thought people might like to know my experience with xe.com. I have looked at the opinions and answers on this forum and others and felt that no one had given a good run down of the whole process or given an effective review of their experience. Please note I have no affiliation to the company other than being a satisfied customer. Hope this is helpful.

The set-up process requires identification and your signature to be provided to comply with anti-money laundering law. It feels laborious, but it is law and they have to comply. They have a secure file up-load part to their site to make it easy to get scans of your id docs and signed docs to them (or you can fax them). The set up process included the scheduling of a call for them to ask some other questions and verify id. They rang at the agreed time - one of the questions asked was about how much money I expected to trade through them. It is worth noting that this amount was the trade limit they placed on my account. However, you can request this to be raised at a later stage.

When I first logged into my account I was confronted by an array of options, each of which had a little help question mark next to it to click on if needed. My first thing was to give details of the bank that the money was going to be sent to. my account was in the US and I could use Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) which costs nothing and takes little time. If you were really in a rush (i.e. instantaneous) you could set up a wire to your account, but it costs.

I then told them how much money (GBP) I wanted to sell and it then gave me a rate of exchange and a total USD value. This rate would last for 60seconds. If you didn't like the rate you were offered or the 60s elapsed you could refresh the rate.

I got a rate of 2.045 at the time which was very competitive then. Once I had accepted the rate and the deal, It then listed the instructions of how to wire the money to them. There were 2 options: BACS and CHAPS. Essentially, CHAPS costs (charged by your bank) and is quick; BACS is free, but slow (4-5 days).

As I was in no major rush, I used the BACS method and sent the money to XE. Once they had recieved the money (GBP) and sent the money (USD) onwards via EFT, they e-mailed me to advise me to check my bank account and inform them in 2 working days if the funds had not arrived.

This was my first deal with them and I was very impressed. I was originally going to use HiFx, but they would not deal on values under 5000 pounds. XE will allow you to trade as low as you wish. My first deal needed to be 2500 pounds, and my next deal will be closer to 10000pounds. I have total confidence that it will go as smoothly. It is also worth noting that I was won over by XE's ability to try a demo of their trading site. The demo screens are the same as the ones I traded through and gave me a good idea of what I was going to have to do and that it was a relatively simple process.

Well done XE. 5/5

[Converse34 1]

Once we sell our house (hopefully soon!) we are using World First. http://www.worldfirst.com/ Other VJers have recommended it and it has the similar anti money laundering setup. We called them a few times and always helpful and quick to response with pretty good rates. I will let you know once we have transfered the money.

[walkies_a 0]

They all have to have the anti money laundering set up under law.