A question about : UKForex for International Bank Transfers
It's come up in quite a few threads during the past couple of months about people wanting to move money from or to banks abroad. I don't live in the UK at present, but I do maintain a UK bank account.
I haven't made many cash transfers over the years because the banks give poor (but not the worst) exchange rates, and also charge high fees (as low as Ј10, but the majority are Ј17-Ј40!) - and can take up to five days. Earlier this year I stumbled across currency transfer companies that are regulated, offer much better exchange rates, and can be fee-free! Since then I've been mentioning these companies in relevant threads, always writing: like UKForex (that's just an example, not a recommendation, as I haven't personally used them).
Well that proviso no longer applies! Not only am I not in the UK, I'm also not in one of their natively-supported countries. However, I set up a transfer with UKForex on Wednesday morning, used Telephone Banking to send the funds across before lunch, and they confirmed receipt of the money about 24 hours later - and a couple of hours after that, it was showing as ready in my bank account (I spent it immediately 
). About 30 hours to transfer from Taiwan to the UK, and so much cheaper - excellent. And UKForex calls you! They call you (internationally if necessary) when you set up the account, for security reasons, and they call you again within an hour when you set up a transfer, to make sure everything's OK and answer any questions. Very nice, considering I'm not in the UK.
There's a Ј750 minimum transfer amount, and a Ј7 fee for amounts between Ј750 and Ј2,999.99. From Ј3,000 there's no fee.
There's no recipient bank charge, because your bank sees it as a local bank transfer.
And the excellent exchange rate can easily save you dozens of pounds on top of the bank fees you've just avoided.
As an example, let's transfer US$6,000 into the UK right now (which XE.com says is equivalent to Ј3569.26).
UKForex will give you Ј3523.20
The best MSE-listed UK exchange service will give you Ј3506.56 (factoring in the Ј12.50 fee for intl bank transfer)
Banks will give you a worse exchange rate and charge fees on top.
UKForex are also FCA regulated. None of the results of the MSE-listed exchange services linked to in the above example are FCA authorised.
This is my referral link. We will both get a Ј50 Amazon voucher after your first transfer if you use this link when setting up your account. 
Best answers:
- Oh, here's how much Barclays will give you for your US$6,000: Ј3,379.14. A Ј190 difference! o_O
- Thank you to whoever used the link and got us a Ј50 Amazon voucher each.
I've used UKForex for four more Ј3,000+ transfers since starting this thread - each has completed between 26 to 51 hours from start to finish. Since the first transfer they haven't called me to check I'm real again - I just register the transaction on their website, then send the funds through my bank's website, and that's it!
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