It’s been a bittersweet month. I sold my flat in Paris, and now need to send a couple hundred thousand Euros to my US bank account. I emailed HSBC, my French bank for a sense of their exchange rate and fees, but - IN GRAND FRENCH BANK TRADITION - I have heard nothing from them. When I bought the place 12 years ago, I sent over money from the US via XE.com, and have replenished my HSBC account usually using Transferwise. But I haven’t linked either XE.com or Transferwise to my French account, and I’ve found French banking to be such an absurd cluster-whatever of arbitrary rules that I’m kind of dreading it.
SO:
1.How would YOU send a large sum out of France? Which service or exchange company would you use? I’m in NYC, and so I can’t patiently present myself at the branch and argue with them.
How do you link a French bank account to Transferwise - I read that Sending Money at Xmas Time item, and people seemed to be doing it.
If you do online banking then it should be easy enough to set up a virement from your French bank account to your chosen currency exchange company. There may be an automatic transfer restriction on your bank account limiting how much you can transfer at any one time. An email to your banking councilor explaining your situation should allow this restriction to be temporarily removed. I’ve recently done this to purchase a ‘buy to let’ property in the UK and I used Currencyfair, but it pays to shop around when transferring large amounts. My French bank account is with the CIC and I did everything via my online account without any hassle. I hope it goes as smoothly for you. Kind regards.
Transferwise offer very competetive rates - i looked a few days ago for the reverse, large sum from GBP to EUR and transferwise were better than HiFX for example even with HiFX not charging a fee !
Latest thing, received just now… very long winded… this is a bit of it…
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I’ll compare the rates for Transferwise and XE.com, since I already have accounts with both. The thing that fills me with terror is having to link my French account to either service - I’ve found the HSBC online functionality pretty much nightmarish.
Thanks for the TorFX suggestion, Stella, but I think I’m going to stick with the couple above, since I’ve already had good experiences with them.
Hello Jonathan,
Congratulations on your house sale! As part of my job I need to trade and make recommendations to clients regarding currency exchange. I have one company that I use, because they offer fantastic rates and their customer service is exceptional. They don’t operate a ‘hard sell’ and scare my clients away, and clients stay with them for life, so I would highly recommend them. The company is Foreign Currencies Direct (FCD) and they offer preferential rates for clients I refer.
If you would like me to pass on details to see if they can get you a better deal then PM me.
