Regular £ to $ payments please

November 2, 2018 3:59 AM

I need to send $700 dollars to an American, every month. I'm in the UK. I am very forgetful and if I have to do the thing manually I *will* forget and it will be a stress. Please advise me on the best way to set this up. I would like to get a better exchange rate if at all possible, since the money is considerable, but if it comes to it I would rather pay slightly more and have a proper recurring payment. Among the options for setting up a recurring payment, I would like the cheapest.

It's towards rent for an apartment my fiancé is living in, although I will also be living there when I stay with him. The rent needs to be paid by cheque because apparently in America it's still the nineties. For this reason my money needs to go directly into his bank account so that he can sort it out. Again, ideally I would like to pay the exact dollar amount, rather than paying an amount in pounds which may end up being too much or too little. I am extremely stupid about money and bills etc throw me into a panic, so I cannot stress enough how little capacity I have to fiddle around with complicated transfers once every several days.

Also, before anyone suggests it, I can see that paying many months at a time as a lump sum would work, but unfortunately I do not have access to those funds all at once, and short of a lottery win that's unlikely to change.

posted by Acheman to Work & Money (14 answers total)

There are a few ways to transfer cash in the US. (Apart from, yes, writing a paper check, it’s insane.) There are person to person transfer apps like Zelle, Venmo or Cashapp. There are bank-to-bank transfers where you set up a transfer through your bank. You could do an international wire transfer through your bank. You could do Western Union, Thomas Cook or a third-party wire transfer. I don’t know the fees and exchange rates associated with each, and these will vary depending on your bank and other factors. Those are your reasonable options though. (You could also probably buy a Visa or MasterCard prepaid gift card a
for the amount and send it? I don’t know if they sell these outside the US though, and they tend to be a red flag for money laundering.)
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 4:15 AM on November 2, 2018

First, your UK bank will be able to do international transfers (called SWIFT payments - example). There is usually a fee for these which varies between banks (sometimes it's a set fee, sometimes a % of the amount being sent), and you should be able to opt to pay all fees on your end (rather than the recipient having to pay them out of the amount you send). So you can say "I want the recipient to receive $700", and your bank will charge you that amount in £, plus any fees on top. To make the payment you will need to get the BIC code (Bank Identifier Code - specifies the bank) and IBAN (the recipient's "International Bank Account Number") from the recipient.

However, whether you can set up a recurring international payment, I don't know. You can do this for usual UK-UK transfers (a Standing Order, which says "send £X to account Y on the Zth day of every month"), but I looked for an equivalent international automatic recurring payment option on various UK bank websites and couldn't see much info. The HSBC site does mention "future dated or recurring (international) payments" so it might be an option with them. Probably worth calling your own bank to find out if this is possible.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:33 AM on November 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Also take a look at Revolut, which offers transfer services and seems relatively low-cost.
posted by chavenet at 4:40 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

You might want to have a bit of a poke around at Transumo to get an idea of what's available and what various providers charge for it.
posted by flabdablet at 4:40 AM on November 2, 2018

Best answer: Seconding Revolut. No exchange fees, no fees for payment, and while the money might take 3-4 days to reach the recipient on their free plan, it goes direct into the bank account. I've never had a problem with them. Highly recommended. On transfers of $100 or so, I save $2-3 compared to PayPal.
posted by humuhumu at 5:08 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Recurring transfers with OFX or CurrencyFair.
posted by sunflower16 at 6:15 AM on November 2, 2018

Transferwise or Xoom are good options. There's a website where you can input the amount and the countries and they'll give you the cheapest way to transfer the money.
posted by kinoeye at 6:30 AM on November 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

There's a possibly easier solution I would hesitate to suggest except in the situation you describe, where the person you are sending money to is someone you love and trust.

You could give him a check every month that is signed and dated, and have him fill in the agreed amount each month, since the exact amount will change from month to month. To protect yourself from a bizarre situation where he would try to fleece you (not that I think he would, but it's never wrong to apply financial safeguards) you could open an account that is used only for this one expense, and keep enough to cover the rent and potential fees, but not your full budget. Each month you ascertain the exchange rate that applies and communicate to him the figure he should put on the check.

You may find this is more hassle than some of the above suggestions, but if he truly needs a check, this is one way to make this work. I hope you come up with a system that works for you both!
posted by citygirl at 7:32 AM on November 2, 2018

I do this in the other direction every month. Transferwise is the best option. They support recurring payments. Fees are transparent and very small. The website is modern, clear and easy to use. The money arrives literally instantly if you're doing US-to-UK. (It may take a couple of days if you're going in the other direction because yes, as you say, it's apparently 1994 in the US.)

Don't use your UK bank to make an international transfer. It will take longer to set up (you end up digging up IBANs, SWIFT codes, mailing addresses, never quite sure if/when the money will arrive, etc.), and each month it will take much longer to arrive than with Transferwise. I also don't know of any UK bank that supports recurring international payments.

With respect, a few of the answers in this thread seem like they are from people who have never actually sent significant amounts of money internationally.

p.s. The absolute last thing you should do is mail your fiancé a cheque drawn on a UK bank (assuming you can even get your UK bank to give you a chequebook). The American bank will charge your fiancé a large fee, and it will take literally weeks to clear once it's deposited in the US. Also, if you write cheques you're legitimizing this country's insane behavior. If you're planning to move here, be the change you want to see in the world. I'm confident they'll figure out electronic banking in the next couple of decades.
posted by caek at 7:54 AM on November 2, 2018 [9 favorites]

I use Transferwise a lot (I'm an American who writes for a London-based publication). Just one more person chiming in to say it's very user friendly and cost effective!
posted by Juliet Banana at 9:07 AM on November 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Whilst most UK bank accounts are free as soon as you want the bank to do anything other than clear your direct debits they charge an arm and a leg. So pick an option that limits your UK bank‘s activity to electronic, monthly, domestic payments.
posted by koahiatamadl at 9:59 AM on November 2, 2018

Transferwise is very good indeed, as has been said, and perfect for this.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 11:49 AM on November 4, 2018

TransferWise review on Transumo

tl;dr: for transfers under £4000 it's about as good as you'll get.
posted by flabdablet at 3:29 PM on November 4, 2018

Response by poster: Thanks to people who suggested Revolut, I think I'm going with that - I'll confess that I'm a little concerned about its security model, but on the other hand it actually offers recurring payments (which, I want to underline, the otherwise excellent TransferWise doesn't; you have to go in every month to authorise the repeat payment, which might seem uncomplicated but is something I would struggle to do.)
posted by Acheman at 12:29 AM on November 16, 2018