Best way of avoiding fees when cashing US cheques in UK bank?

February 24, 2009 8:34 AM

I'm British living in the UK but I get sent lots of US cheques in US$. Best way of minimising fees/costs for cashing them?
posted by humblepigeon to Work & Money (2 answers total)

Talk to your bank; when I was in this situation, I was able to get the bank to cut me a deal to make it cheaper because it was a regular deposit and I'd been with them for years. Mind you, this was a few years ago when the banks were still in decent shape...
posted by baggers at 9:10 AM on February 24, 2009

Citibank UK (and presumably some others) will let you open a dollar account, based in the UK. It's free to accountholders, I think, unless you want the ability to write your own dollar cheques too, in which case there's a monthly fee. This way you can bank the cheque for free, then transfer the balance into your Citibank sterling account, or, with the usual ridiculous 3-4 day wait, into another UK bank sterling account. This avoids charges, but you'd need to check which exchange rates were used.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 1:13 PM on February 24, 2009