can anyone help me please
i have just purchased a house in san miguel alicante.i have paid my deposit but am looking for the best way of transferring euros to spain.i can get a commercial rate of 1.44 euros to the pound if i buy from a bureau but if i purchase from my own bank i can only get 1.40 to the pound but they will electronically send it at a cost of
appx.1000.00 whereby the burau are unable to send it .i dont want to travel to spain with about 130000.euros can anyone advise me
would be most grateful.

Why don't you travel with a cheque? That would be more safe than cash and would solve the problem, wouldn't it?

If not, ask the one who has sold it to you how other people does it, or ask other banks to find better rates (1.44 is a robbery...).

Fernando

[originally posted by schnapps on posted 02-04-2004 04:08 AM]

hola fernando
many thanks for taking the time out to reply.i will certainly look into the cheque issue.
regards scnapps
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pmking

In the U.S. it costs about $40.00 to wire transfer money to spain (from the bank branch). I used to do that until recently. I can now do it from home on-line (transfer from Citibank Acct. in the U.S. to BBVA Acct. in Madrid) this now costs about $10.00.

Unfortunately, the Euro is killing us and there is no easy way out of the high exchange rate as far as I know. XE.com (the exchange rate web site) says 1.46 Euros to 1 GBP.

I remember the good old days when $1 = almost 200 ptas. (2001).

This has been a problem for me in the past. Frequently places have asked that I wire trasfer money as a deposit or as payment. The Huntingon National Bank charges $40 for a wire transfer plus gives you a horrible rate of exchange. Recently I have used the follow site to transfer money: https://www.xe.com/fx/ I have used both the money order and the wire transfer and prefer the wire transfer. You can tell what you total price including service charges will be before you commit to the transaction. There rate of exchange is better than any of the banks in Columbus, Ohio

I was concerned about using my main checking accout for this on-line service so I set up an independent free checking account which I only use to do transfers. So far, it has worked well. I wish that more people would use Pay Pal because it is the cheapest way to move money.

I found Western Union was cheaper than going through my bank and it seemed to work well in terms of getting my money sent to a bank in Europe. I'll have to remember that xe site though!

sel wrote: I'm with Huntington National Bank here in Columbus too and yes, I too was a bit surprised with the charge(s) and exchange rate for a money transfer to Spain. In the end, I used Western Union and it worked out fine. I've never used the https://www.xe.com/fx/ service but I use the currency exchange part of the site exclusively - I'll look into the money transfer part too...

Saludos, MadridMan