FORUM

I will be transferring euros from my French bank to sterling in my UK bank.

Does anyone have knowledge of the most economic way of doing this?

I am tempted just to take the euros in notes, stuff them in a money belt and carry them home if it is too expensive to do a bank to bank transfer!

You will probably get a better exchange rate if you did a bank to bank exchange - this all depends on what your French bank will charge you for making the exchange.

Going the other way from the UK to France, a few months ago ,when the euro/pound rate was around the 1.22 mark , I did a bank to bank exchange and they used the commercial rate which at that time was 1.27.

It also depends how much you are transferring, obviously, if you are not moving much it does not really matter how you do it.

The Post Office tend to be the cheapest, BUT you must pay in cash, not CC or cheques.

If you are moving more than, say €5,000 , it is worth using an exchange specialist.

I've got some notes about this here : www.the-languedoc-page.com/property/currency.htm

Peter

The easiest ,most convenient, and usually cheapest way,Colin, is a SWIFT transfer,which I guess is what Serge is referring to.

Like him I did one the other way recently,and you need the usual identity stuff,plus your full IBAN number(s),address of Bank,Bank ID code etc. As he says,the more you send,the better the rate;I believe amounts in excess of 10,000 €/£ attract the best.

Nationwide charged £20 to do this. Impressively BNP charged a big fat ZERO to receive it.

Co op bank charge a flat fee of £8 for transfers via Swift. Bank Populaire don't charge to receive money

Colin
If you try to take more than 10000 euros into UK in cash you are required by law to make a customs declaration. The same goes for bringing cash out. This is as I understand it.

That's what I love about the Swiss, you can walk through customs (in or out!) with two gold ingots in your case and nobody blinks!! I mean if you walk through the red, open the case - and the guys look blankly at you as if to say - what do you want to bother us for with that stuff?

Not too long ago a Russion complained to the police about having been robbed at the airport of CHF 60,000 in cash. The police tutted about the fact of thieves at the airport - but nobody asked the Russian where the cash came from..

Ah well, maybe it's because my future son in law is chief of the team of airport security.. who knows!!

Course, I'm talking about Zürich.. Geneva is not civilised!!

Puddles wrote:Colin
If you try to take more than 10,000 euros into UK in cash you are required by law to make a customs declaration. The same goes for bringing cash out. This is as I understand it.

Colin quite wrongly I presumed you were talking about small sums of Euro's, not Mega bucks.

But as Puddles and Peter have stated use professional agents or Banks to transfer the Money, It's then clearly recorded and you will have no problems with the French authorities or the UK under the EU money laundering convention.

Be safe.

10,000 euros where's that come from!

Colin,
If this thread goes on for much longer you will be a multi millionaire and they will have you shifting gold bullion in each shoe.

Colin I know an excellent shoe maker!

And I'll be cinderella.

Thanks everyone. Decided to take the advice to use the bank - which is now done at an exchange rate of €82.23 to the £. Just as well we were moving money from France to UK.

The boy done good!

Colin L wrote:Thanks everyone. Decided to take the advice to use the bank - which is now done at an exchange rate of €82.23 to the £. Just as well we were moving money from France to UK.

Colin,

If it's not a typo, which bank has given you 82 euros to the pound? - Mrs S has set her expectations on a windfall now!

I wish!

Try €0.822