TorFX (see link at top of page) have been consistently good over many years. Recently, we recommended them to friends to transfer a significant sum to France following an inheritance and they reported that the Company looked after them very well.
Our contact was Luke Zorab
Senior Account Manager Tel: +44 (0)1736 335285 SMS: +44 (0)7860 001101 Email: Luke.Zorab@torfx.com Web: www.torfx.com
Anton -
I use TransferWise regularly to transfer money from UK to France. I also have a Nationwide account. If I were to transfer today, using TransferWise I’d end up with 1155.57€. Using Nationwide would yield 1135.90€
Thank you Graham.
Brian, thanks for making the comparison. Would the same rates apply for £100,000?
Thank you Graham
Brian, thank you. Would the same rate apply if I wanted to transfer £100,000?
I haven’t transferred anything like that much for a few years so you’d need to ask your chosen supplier.
But for that sum, I’d want to compare a few suppliers and going with the best speed/cost/reliability option.
It’s worth asking TransferWise, TorFX (as recommended by @graham ) , XE.com and two or three others, including your bank.
When I sold two of my houses I used Foremost Currency Group, they were excellent and could not have been more helpful.
I have been using TW for 5 years now and never had a problem. The thing about foreign exchange is that there is a buy price and a sell price and the difference between the two is where most of the money is made traditionally. TW upended that and have been copied since, as they act as a broker between the two and so you get the mid-market price, with a clear fee for the service. I find it hard to believe a traditional currency broker (who typically gives you the sell rate) can improve on that but TBH the cost is so low that I would have to be transferring hundreds of thousands to even begin to worry about it.
The transfers are pretty much instantaneous and I also use it for making € transfers but certainly not for £ ones, where UK banks are still efficient and cost-effective. French banks are clunky and cumbersome and I can’t be bothered to go through CA’s procedure for electronic transfers - the small cost is nothing compared to the convenience
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at the end of the day… for the majority of people, it’s the actual amount of money you receive from the transaction as opposed to what fees are (or not) levied - surely. The “spread” (as the difference is called) is somewhat academic.
TW avoids the spread (though that’s fairly narrow on the currency markets themselves as opposed to the high street where it can be huge) by not actually buying or selling currency, all their £’s stay in the UK, $ in the US and € in the euro zone.
With larger amounts there are more behind the scenes checks carried out so process can be slowed somewhat. Using an FX broker rather than P2P services also allows you to buy in in and fix the rate, for example the 1.164 on offer today could be locked at that for a few months whereas currency fluctuations could cost you quite a bit more if the rate has slipped back a bit by the time you need the transfer. I know which I would choose and did when we purchased.
I agree that for big sums it is worth using a trader. With eg transferwise it seems the fee remains the same per £1000 no matter how much you exchange. With a trader you can get a better deal with big sums.
But takes time to open an account, and is not as fast. When we bought our first place in 2000 we opened accounts with a couple of them, HiFx, Currencies Direct and another one I forget (it was in the era before online banking) so I could play one off against another… saved ourselves quite a bit of money as with purchase and renovations we had to bring quite a lot of money over in the first 5 years… Now I just have one.
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This would be my recommendation. With the FOREX companies they’re prepared for large sums and so do AML and KYC before, so that they’re ready to ask for proof of funds and get the exchange/ transfer done. Unless I already had a long established relationship I would never use one of the fintechs for large sums initially as it’s just asking for the algorithms to put you into a Merry-go-round of AML compliance. They’re perfect once you have a relationship with them, but the levels of automation can mean they’re less flexible with large sums.
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Thanks again.
It won’t be for a week or two so I’ll try closer to the day
Anton you really didn’t get what I said did you?
We bought our house using Revolut and saved approx 1000 euro over our previous FX company.
Sure did John. It’s just that the amount is not in my possession at the present time so I can’t do a thing until then.
What you say is something I have read about and would probably have tried anyway, but thanks for reminding me.
I’ve never been in a position where a large (to me) sum of money needed moving from one account to another. If both accounts were in UK I probably wouldn’t be so concerned, but between countries . . .
Once again, thank you
Far from academic, Graham, although of course I agree that the final cost to you or me is what is most important. The reason the spread is important is that the cost is usually hidden there, so what looks like a low cost may not be. Although it is an exaggerated example because they offer rubbish rates, next time you pass a bureau de change check out the difference between the “We buy” and “We sell” rates.
It is very difficult to do a direct comparison, because these rates move up and down all the time, so when comparing between two different services, in order to get a realistic comparison you need to do them both at the same time.
Well, obviously you are an expert in the field but for the ordinary man on the Clapham Omnibus it is academic. At the end of the day it’s how one currency translates to the other and the amount you get in your account that matters.
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In my experience when you take out a forward contract, you don’t lock in the current rate - it’s usually lower as the broker/bank has to hedge for rate movements over the period of time of the forward contract - the longer the contract, the lower the rate. I’m not convinced this is the best way. I have tended to follow the rate movements and convert when I think it’s right for me. With TW you can also lock in the rate for 24 hours which can be very useful if you need to move large sums and start incurring compliance checks.