[Smiler]

What's the best way to transfer money back to the UK please? Banks or a transfer service?

Any recommendations please? :D

[Charlosparky]

What about Transferz?, from what i can see you can transfer between the currencies in any order (though I have only tried £ to NZ$) so I assume it works in reverse too, in which case it would be a $15 transfer fee instead of £7. In theory you could selct ant transfer combination from NZ$, UK£, SIN$ CAN$ AUS$, but that would be silly eh? :laugh

[Avalon]

Is this for regular transfers or for a one off?

HIfx do both - and thier rates should be good, with no extra charges.

However - its worth noting that you wont get as good a rate going from NZ-UK as you would going from UK-NZ. (IE its not the opposite so if you pay £1 and get $3 - you may have to pay $3.10 to get £1 - *toatlly made up numbers and in no way indicitive of teh actual difference). Hifx explained this to be as being becuase of the interest rate in the UK being lower than in NZ, so its more expensive to Buy £. I kinda understood that :laugh

If you dont have accounts with one or two currency transfer companies - I would get them set up, you may need to have an account to get an actually live quote out of them. But it wont cost anything to open.

Then pick a day and ask what they are offering, and just compare with the bank.

If you need to set up regular transfers, I know Hifx have a minimum of $1000 a month. You set the rate at the start, and how many months its for, and then each month you pay Hifx a direct debit (always fro the same amount) and they credit your UK acoount with the contracted equivalent (again - its always the same for the life of the contract - becasue you set the rate at the start, you dont get any fluctuations with the daily rate. It means the amount you get in the UK doenst go up, but it also wont go down, so good if you know you have to have a certain amount in the UK.

To transfer in one go, Hifx need a minimum of $10k (its £5k coming this way).

Does that help at all???

[Smiler]

Yes it does. Thank you both :nice1

It's not going to be a regular thing, probably once or twice a year, max.

Next numpty question then.....When I use one of these companies does it go straight into my bank account or some holding account and then I have to transfer it. :confused:

[Avalon]

I know with Hifx its straight to your bank account.

Like this:

Your Uk account - Hifx uk account (just like paying a bill) - your NZ account.

Havent done it the other way but I assume its the same, ie.:

Your NZ account - Hifx nz account - to your Uk account.

Coming from the UK to NZ - the delay is in getting from your UK account and clearing into thir UK account. Again im assuming here - but I guess the delay going the other way is from Hifx to your Uk account - this delay is becasue of teh UK clearing system.

Whatever happens (and again this is what I know of Hifx only), you will be told when you get your quote and aggree to the trade EXACTLY how much money will hit your UK account.

[Smiler]

Thanks Av. :nice1:nice1

[StevieD]

Why do we need clearance systems in the days of electronic transfer? Surely the clearance system was required for the money to reach your bank be it cash or cheques?
Another money laundering ploy by the banks methinks ;)

[Avalon]

Why do we need clearance systems in the days of electronic transfer? Surely the clearance system was required for the money to reach your bank be it cash or cheques?
Another money laundering ploy by the banks methinks ;)
Right on the ball there!

[marcia]

Definately right - when I closed the childrens halifax savings accounts and had to get cheques not cash (they wouldn't give me morethan £600 per day??? Despite there being more that that in all 3 accounts - 'limit of £600 per person, even if I had taken Kev with me they would n't let us!) So anyway I had to have cheques, and you can't get a building society/bankers cheque if you don't have the funds in the account in the first place so it impossible for the cheque to 'bounce' - yet when I went to Looyds to pay it in they said it would be 3 days to clear - we also had this with the ISA's and that was a substantial amount of money 'sitting' in space not earning interest!!!

Another scam to get that bit extra out of you!!! :no

[seagulls]

[QUOTE=Avalon]
However - its worth noting that you wont get as good a rate going from NZ-UK as you would going from UK-NZ. (IE its not the opposite so if you pay £1 and get $3 - you may have to pay $3.10 to get £1 - *toatlly made up numbers and in no way indicitive of teh actual difference). Hifx explained this to be as being becuase of the interest rate in the UK being lower than in NZ, so its more expensive to Buy £. I kinda understood that :laugh
QUOTE]

What Hifx have told you about interest rates on the above quote isn't correct. The above $3-$3.10 is called the bid offer spread. This is the way that the broker make their money. The $0.10 difference being the profit they make for every £ that you transfer. I think Hifx are a very good company, however, always negotiate. They can always provide a better rate. Even if it only gets you an extra $100. I would suggest opening one or two accounts. Other companies are Moneycorp and currencies direct. They all work in much the same way. You can then play all 3 against each other. If you need any help let me know.

[Avalon]

Cheers, but can you explain that a bit more for me please? I was under the impression the money is made between the difference between what they buy at and what they sell to me at. But its still going to cost them more to buy £ with $ than it would be to buy $ with £ (ie they dont get the straight opposite any more than we do). Either way round they cream some off, but they cream the same amount. Why would they make a bigger profit off someone sending $ to £ than they would off someone sending £ to $ ?

I hope the question makes sense - it takes me a while to get my head round this - so sorry if im being a pain :o Of course theres always the possiblity ive misunderstood what they told me - wouldnt be the first time :o

I did look at other companies and compare prices - in fact its what I recommend - but in my case hifx came out best (and I like dealing with them which means I now dont even go to anyone else).

[seagulls]

Like you mention they make money from everything.

In the above the spread of 3 to 3.10 would work as follows:
You or I would approach an fx company to transfer £10,000. They would say that the rate is 3 and would therefore transfer NZD 30,000 to us. At the same time they are being approached by someone else to transfer NZD 30,000 to pounds. For this they would say the rate is 3.10 and they would transfer £9,677 to them in the UK. Hence, they have made a profit of £323.

At the same time they are also making money on the rates:
For example, the current live rates being quoted for GBP to NZD in the foreign exchange market is buy NZD 2.8565 - sell NZD 2.8569. This is for huge transactions of millions of pounds but the fx company will be getting close to this range. However, they will be offering us rates of around buy 2.82 - sell 2.88. They also then make the difference between buy 2.82 and buy 2.8565.

So if when you do a deal with them you always have a little bit to play with. See if you can squeeze them to 2.825. It just gets that little bit extra

[Avalon]

Cheers seagulls - I can see what you mean now! Thank you very much for explaining that.

Hxxx