How to convert pounds to euro/$. Not in forex

[garnet]

Hi,

what is the best way to convert pounds to euro or/and $?
Say I have a pounds bank account and a euro account. Today £/euro is 1.2833 (xe.com). How can I convert say £1000 and get 1283.30 euro in my euro account?
I don't mind a small commission or say lower rate, but it must be reasonable.
I am not interested in forex.
Any ideas.

[stek]

Hi,

what is the best way to convert pounds to euro or/and $?
Say I have a pounds bank account and a euro account. Today £/euro is 1.2833 (xe.com). How can I convert say £1000 and get 1283.30 euro in my euro account?
I don't mind a small commission or say lower rate, but it must be reasonable.
I am not interested in forex.
Any ideas.

Put it all on red. No, black. No, half on each. Sorted.

[SimonMac]

Hi,

what is the best way to convert pounds to euro or/and $?
Say I have a pounds bank account and a euro account. Today £/euro is 1.2833 (xe.com). How can I convert say £1000 and get 1283.30 euro in my euro account?
I don't mind a small commission or say lower rate, but it must be reasonable.
I am not interested in forex.
Any ideas.

XE.com is bascially a forex site and the rate will never be the same as the commercial rates available on such small amounts as £1000

I have both a UK Bank account and a Spanish one, but never transfer money between the two, I use https://www.thecurrencyclub.co.uk/ to get cash to take over to Spain, for £1000 the rate they offer is 1.2612 where XE.com is offering 1.28452

[jamesbrown]

Er. Um. You want to conduct a foreign exchange without forex? Let me know how that works out...

You aren't going to get spot rate, so you either make a bank transfer to a GBP/EUR account (or via an intermediary, such as Paypal) or you use a dedicated FX provider or you withdraw the cash and visit Serge on the corner of Tulip St.

[DimPrawn]

Someone like https://www.moneycorp.com/uk/ I've used them before, but only up to about £300K at a time.

[garnet]

Er. Um. You want to conduct a foreign exchange without forex? Let me know how that works out...

You aren't going to get spot rate, so you either make a bank transfer to a GBP/EUR account (or via an intermediary, such as Paypal) or you use a dedicated FX provider or you withdraw the cash and visit Serge on the corner of Tulip St.

I don't want to go to forex, I don't know it, all this leverage things and all.
I am talking about "flat" conversion, cash style (only into bank account).
In November 2015 £/euro was 1.42, now it is 1.28. I wanted to convert £50 000 into euro and keep it in euro account until a week ago when it was £/euro of 1.25.

This scheme:

my £ account, send £ to intermediary £ account > intermediary converts to euro > transfer from intermediary's euro account to my euro account.

[d000hg]

Someone like https://www.moneycorp.com/uk/ I've used them before, but only up to about £300K at a time.

I wonder if you can use sites like TransferWise (is this a similar idea?) to transfer money to yourself?

[jamesbrown]

I don't want to go to forex, I don't know it, all this leverage things and all.
I am talking about "flat" conversion, cash style (only into bank account).
In November 2015 £/euro was 1.42, now it is 1.28. I wanted to convert £50 000 into euro and keep it in euro account until a week ago when it was £/euro of 1.25.

This scheme:

my £ account, send £ to intermediary £ account > intermediary converts to euro > transfer from intermediary's euro account to my euro account.

I think you're misunderstanding what forex means but, in any case, you want a straightforward foreign exchange broker, of which there are many. Examples include Oanda and HiFX. You'll need to open an account with them and transfer money in from your GBP account. You can then open sub-accounts in various currencies for the internal transfer, before you withdraw to an appropriate bank account in the target currency. There are literally hundreds of FX brokers. You will typically achieve within a few pips of the spot rate. However, the funds are not protected by the FSCS, so you may lose your deposit if the broker goes bust (highly unlikely, but not unheard of, and increasingly likely if you leave you deposit for a long period). Obviously, there are no guarantees that you're punting in the right direction if this is a future position (i.e. as opposed to a straightforward transfer). Also, if it's a currency speculation, I don't really see why you wouldn't want to use a leveraged option. In any case, your best bet is to open an account with an FX broker.

[scooterscot]

will 2nd transferwise.com, the closest anywhere you'll get to the going market rate.

[jamesbrown]

will 2nd transferwise.com, the closest anywhere you'll get to the going market rate.

All of the FX brokers offer a few pips for liquid currency pairs like Cable. There's really very little difference between them. They either make money from the pips or from the various transfer fees or both, but the margins are way smaller than the highstreet banks.