They gave me 1.4068 euros for each pound sterling on 9th March which was very fair
I wouldn`t take a risk on future pound/euro exchange rates.
I would continue to receive my UK pension in sterling into my UK account and transfer it when needed using one of the specialist companies like Currencies Direct or Moneycorp who give a good rate & do not charge transfer fees at either end.
Agreed. Especially as it seems (for the moment at least!) to go UP every month! :-)
You do seen to get a more than competitive rate from the DWP
I have read a couple of reports on that. It would be at a fixed/pre-set rate that would not take into account the present exchange rates which give us a few bob more. I am happy enough getting it directly paid in to my bank using standard exchange rates from sterling. What they say about bulk buying currency makes very little difference at present, for them perhaps but a very few €s for us. Fair enough if the rate goes down like a rock, it seems they would ensure us a minimum but that seems like a contradiction when the pension rate is fixed. My intuition is to not trust what they are saying. I may be wrong but on the track record of the DWP over recent years, better safe than sorry seems best.
Resurrecting an old but still very relevant thread about the benefits of having your UK pensions paid direct in Euro to your French Bank Account following comments in the Tax 2021 thread
We find that the rate received from HMG is broadly comparable to the rates offered by the likes of Wise and Revolut but I do know of others who prefer to continue to receive their pension in Sterling and convert to Euro at a time (and rate) which suits them.
What do others think particularly since the (continuing) threat of UK bank closures post Brexit?
In my experience, there is so little, if any, difference between what results from an HMG and what I would get via e.g. Wise that I honestly can’t see the point in doing it oneself and it is, at least, reliable 
My UK pension is paid in euros directly to the French bank every month. It is straightforward and automatic.
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and hassle free!
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I implied but didn’t say - I do the same as Fleur!
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Morning all
I retired this Jan and have my pension paid directly into my French account.
Agree with all other posters, simple, hassle free, pretty damn good rate.
This allows for day to day spending in France. However I do have rental income coming into my UK account, so I am covered at both ends
Andy
Me 5 
Me 6. I’ve got bits and pieces of small pensions I keep in the UK including £1.73 per annum from BP! 
That means I have money in both countries.
Wow! don’t you spend it all at once Sue
They made a mistake when I retired at 60 and offered to send me a one-off cheque of about £12.00 to have done with it. Since I intend to live to 120, I thought their offer was mean. Also, they had made me redundant many years before. They were sorting out the mess of buying Distillers Chemicals and wanted a smaller workforce… What I didn’t realise was that they used my pension pot for my redundancy lump sum (hence the reason why there is so little left). I was very naïve. So it is with immense pleasure I watch their tiny pension come into my account each year. I’ve already had about £24 from them. 
The admin must be costing them more than the money they are paying me. They were foolish!
hell hath no fury and all that 
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“Yes, I’ll have to get going on a spreadsheet”
@larkswood12 what speadsheet program will you use?
Mine is written using LibreOffice Calc but I have also experimented (for fun) with Google Sheets (sad, aren’t I lol)
We have pensions paid to UK accounts. Because we have earning here in euros that covers basic expenses we can chose when to bring it over, so this has worked for us. We didn’t quite hit the peak this year, but managed just over 1.16 in March which probably gave us an extra £300 than doing it monthly throughout year…
And it keeps our UK accounts active.
Horses for courses…
Thanks for linking to this thread - I hadn’t seen it!
I use excel - the work computer. But when I hand it back (oh bring on that day!) I’ll probably get an apple macbook, so it’ll be sheets unless it’s so bad I get an O365 thing.
I think the old ‘on-board’ 2013(?) office apps were much better than 365 - and the mail client is quite frankly crap.
And back on topic - if the exchange is similar to Wise etc, then better to use the automatic euro exchange in a falling £/euro market - and in a rising one to keep the £ cash till the time seems right - which is what Jane is doing). That said, apart from the rent and bills I just pay for everything on the credit card at the visa conversion rate - as the market’s rising (apart from last week haha).
The big thing is going to be when taking the pension lump sum(s) and house purchases etc - when to do these transactions will be gambles involving many thousands of euros.
The obvious one is to take the pension lump sum at a low euro rate, to minimise the tax (that said it’s already pretty minimal 
and convert at a high rate when buying the house!
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Excel and LibreOffice Calc are broadly comparable. Indeed, in LO, you can elect to save a s/sheet in Excel format (but not sure the other way round) but LO will happily import an Excel sheet. The only issues may be macros (which are really only used to full effect by power users anyway).