Cheapest way of transferring money (UK) to a foreign bank

January 13, 2009 9:46 AM

What is the cheapest way of transferring money to a foreign bank from a UK bank account?

In this case I want to transfer funds from a UK account to an account in the Sultanate of Oman.

posted by jonesor to work & money (9 comments total)

Sorry that I have no answers, but PLEASE PLEASE rethink if you are about to be fooled by a 419 advance fee fraud scam. I even found one that mentions Oman.
posted by ALongDecember at 9:59 AM on January 13

My apologies, but the alarms went off in my head, and I though you said Sultan of Oman (person), not Sultanate of Oman (country.)
posted by ALongDecember at 10:15 AM on January 13

If you've both got paypal that seems to work pretty well.
posted by gadha at 10:35 AM on January 13

Can I ask if you're exchanging sterling for another currency in the process? That's going to make a huge difference in terms of price.

Also, how much? Paypal has fairly low ceilings, so anything above £1,000 might be better or done elsewhere.

To be honest, in the past I've just asked the receiver for their detail (including the international bank numbers and the like) and done a bank transfer. There are fees associated with this, but if you're doing, say, £10,000 or more, they're relatively small. As mentioned above, it is te exchange rate which makes the biggest difference if you're doing that along with the transfer.
posted by Sova at 11:29 AM on January 13

The sum is less than £1000 and needs to arrive in Omani Riyals.
posted by jonesor at 11:59 AM on January 13

It's a long time since I've done this but I seem to recall that at one stage it was to use a bank cheque than a bank transfer.

You say to the bank "I want a cheque for X Omani Riyals" and they tell you their fee plus whatever they're charging for X Omani Riyals that day. You then send the cheque to whoever you want to make use of the funds.

I'm not saying this is better than a wire transfer - I'm just saying in the past I've found it cheaper.

For the amount involved something like Western Union (which I've never used only read of) may be more economical than most banks.

Last thought - if you're in london it might be worth calling whatever Omani banks have branches in London and asking them what they would charge for the transfer.
posted by southof40 at 2:24 PM on January 13

It's a long time since I've done this but I seem to recall that at one stage it was to use a bank cheque than a bank transfer.

... should have read ...

It's a long time since I've done this but I seem to recall that at one stage it was cheaper to use a bank cheque than a bank transfer.


... also I didn't mean to suggest that I had used a bank cheque to transfer money to Oman - my experience was with transactions out of Sterling to Australia/USA etc
posted by southof40 at 2:27 PM on January 13

Just ask your bank to do the wire transfer. Post isn't always secure in that part of the world. Whatever money you save in exchange rates and fees probably isn't going to be much of a savings once you add pay for international certified post... or possibly, replacing the cheque.
posted by Grrlscout at 11:49 PM on January 13

Give World First a call.
posted by devnull at 1:52 AM on January 14