ARmy Rumour SErvice

Joe Private, F&H is on the right track, do you have a personal dislike for him. You clearly show that you have no knowlege of transferring money overseas. Bottom line is it incurs fees. Your 3 uk bank accounts are complete red herring (as would be your German bank account if you are serving over there).

Originally Posted by fingeringhoe

Thanks for the reply BOAB, but what has the tax payer got to do with it? I simply wish to avoid being ripped off with an unfavourable exchange rate from a greedy bank.

You'll get shafted on exchange rates anyway. You'll be paid in sterling not $AUS

Originally Posted by Blokeonabike

Joe Private, F&H is on the right track, do you have a personal dislike for him. You clearly show that you have no knowlege of transferring money overseas. Bottom line is it incurs fees. Your 3 uk bank accounts are complete red herring (as would be your German bank account if you are serving over there).

I have no beef with F&H apart from the feeling that he is a troll, sockpuppet, alternative account for some oxygen thief, or similar. Regarding transfer of money to a foreign account, I understood that the fees (and thus who pays them) depend on whether or not the money gets transferred as Sterling or local currency. I also think that you can't elect to have a portion paid in Sterling, and a portion in another currency. This would mean that the sum paid into the foreign account would be transferred in Sterling, after which any fees due would be deducted and an exchange rate applied, resulting in no extra cost to the taxpayer, and probably no gain to the individual. Pensions which are wholly paid in a foreign currency are, I believe, different. I am happy to be corrected, but only if I'm wrong.

If you get paid in sterling and you make a transfer into say a dollar account it costs a transfer fee and it is likely you pay the despatching bank and the receiving bank. Its expensive.

If you pay from a sterling account (including from your sterling pay account) the bank will convert the money at whatever exchange rate it wants to as you have no control over when the exchange takes place. Remember that the forex market is 24/7/365, virtually.

The most economical way of doing this is to draw a cheque on your sterling account and pay that into a sterling account in your foreign bank. The time it takes to clear the cheque will be important but should be no more than 30days and these times are coming down.

Then you have to watch the rates to see when the best time to exchange is. The larger the sum you exchange the better the rate generally. You prearrange and agree the rate with your " overseas" bank and job done.

Most banks have offshore arrangements and can be dealt with either by phone or online from the UK.

Or you could use Paypal perhaps.

I can give you the details of an account you can have it sent too

Ive been using this for the last 7 years. No transfer fees if you use EFT for funds delivery, and the rate's pretty damned good too.

It takes about 9 days to get from the US to the UK. I could do it much quicker, but it costs more in fees.

Originally Posted by Blokeonabike

Joe Private, F&H is on the right track, do you have a personal dislike for him. You clearly show that you have no knowlege of transferring money overseas. Bottom line is it incurs fees. Your 3 uk bank accounts are complete red herring (as would be your German bank account if you are serving over there).

Thank you for that comment. It just so happens that I have professional knowledge of examining Foriegn Payments made by MoD through the BofE

Simples.


Set up a Citibank $AUS account in the UK, and have your salary paid in direct (it is not an offshore account). You can then transfer free of charge to a Citibank account in Aus itself.


I once did a similar thing with US currency.