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Best FX Companies

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stuboy
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Best FX Companies

Post by stuboy »

I've recently accepted a new job, which will see me working in London 3 days a week. I'm also going to be paid in GBP, even though my family and I will still be residing in Amsterdam.

Therefore each month I'll need to transfer my GBP to EUR

Want to know if anyone can recommend any good FX companies that don't charge a large mark-up AND do use a reputable rate (e.g. a Reuters midday rate)?

Regular banks are terrible places to convert, although I'm going to have to check with both my UK bank & NL bank that they don't charge for transferring money or receiving money from a 3rd party (highly unlikely).

Any help would be appreciated.

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Moist von Lipwig
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Re: Best FX Companies

Post by Moist von Lipwig »

money-transfer-euros-to-sterling-t109605.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

sleuth
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Re: Best FX Companies

Post by sleuth »

stuboy wrote:I've recently accepted a new job, which will see me working in London 3 days a week. I'm also going to be paid in GBP, even though my family and I will still be residing in Amsterdam.

Therefore each month I'll need to transfer my GBP to EUR

Want to know if anyone can recommend any good FX companies that don't charge a large mark-up AND do use a reputable rate (e.g. a Reuters midday rate)?

Regular banks are terrible places to convert, although I'm going to have to check with both my UK bank & NL bank that they don't charge for transferring money or receiving money from a 3rd party (highly unlikely).

Any help would be appreciated.

Working in Finance when changing money up we get special rates of exchange on all currencies.

For example Euro & Dollars will get 1 pip off the current spot and get it delivered by Courior.

Euro current spot at mom is 1.2489-1.2493 so i would get the exchange 1.239.

Dollar current spot at mom is 1.6727-1.6732 so i would get the exchange 1.663.

You being Joe Bloggs in the street if you walk into one of their branches you would get like 1.23 & 1.65 which is still alot better than you will generally find anywhere else.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j ... s14xWxx4Cg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


There is another company who have crafitly adopted the same name the difference being Global on the end- they are not connected and i think its abit naughty that they can get alot of business in this way impersonating the Original Thomas Exchange uk.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j ... lJ-cLtfq-Q" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

as an aside i think if you went into one of their branches or phoned and explained you wanted to change up a salary regularly i think you might get broker rates like 1/we get.

Everyone i know uses me for getting their holiday money as you end upgetting alot more for your pound when you are taking away more than a grand and in alot of cases people are losing out on several pips using rip off merchants like banks and holiday firmes where you'd be lucky to get 1.19 and 1.62 respectively.

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Re: Best FX Companies

Post by admin »

sleuth wrote: Working in Finance when changing money up we get special rates of exchange on all currencies.

For example Euro & Dollars will get 1 pip off the current spot and get it delivered by Courior.

Euro current spot at mom is 1.2489-1.2493 so i would get the exchange 1.239.
With CurrencyFair I can get 1.247 euros to the pound currently (when 1.2501 per http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/mark ... efault.stm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), as Stu will because he'll have a bank account in Holland.

sleuth
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Re: Best FX Companies

Post by sleuth »

admin wrote:
sleuth wrote: Working in Finance when changing money up we get special rates of exchange on all currencies.

For example Euro & Dollars will get 1 pip off the current spot and get it delivered by Courior.

Euro current spot at mom is 1.2489-1.2493 so i would get the exchange 1.239.
With CurrencyFair I can get 1.247 euros to the pound currently (when 1.2501 per http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/mark ... efault.stm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), as Stu will because he'll have a bank account in Holland.

Nice rate.

When i go away i normally get spotrate from emaisl in the room with people wanting to change up Euro for stg :mrgreen:

Currencyfair... pah

stuboy
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Re: Best FX Companies

Post by stuboy »

Thanks to you both. I'll investigate on Friday when I'm home and hopefully report back. I've also been recommended World First, but know nothing about them so will check out their FX rates too.

stuboy
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Re: Best FX Companies

Post by stuboy »

So in the end I went with World First, although there was another company, transferwise, that looked promising too.

With a lot of the FX companies I spoke with they was a fixed fee element (some were as low as £3, but that could make a difference to the % mark-up on the FX rate).

For those interested, Transferwise are a peer to peer exchange. This means they match people who are looking to exchange their currency into a different currency, with someone else who is looking to do this the other way round (e.g. I might want to exchange £1000 into EURs, whilst there is someone in Europe looking to exchange €1200 into Pounds. Ultimately the rate they use is the midday rate and then they add an FX mark-up of 0.5%. They do that to both sides, so they make 1%, but you as a buyer of EURs only pays 0.5%. You just have to be happy that you are being offered the midday rate.

World First is very similar, except they are not a peer to peer, instead they are an FX exchange. What they do is go and get the live interbank rate at the time you call or ask for a price online. You can then accept or decline that rate. If you accept it, they add 0.5% to that rate and then fix that rate for up to 48-72 hrs for you whilst you transfer your money to them.

Of course, with all exchanges, if the FX rate then increases, and you've got yourself stuck with a lower rate then this is a bit of bad luck, however, unless you're looking to trade FX, I guess overall you'd prefer to get a rate a fix it for 48hrs - 72hrs as it'll even itself out over the long run, especially as I'm planning on doing this every month as I'll be getting paid in GBP but will need my money to be converted into EURs.

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Re: Best FX Companies

Post by admin »

A couple of comparision articles here:

https://www.currencyfair.com/blog/money ... s-compared" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.currencyfair.com/compare" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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