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Diego
Moppett posted
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I'm working in the UK and I have to pay my student loans to SallieMae
every month. I am currently transferring money regularly from my
UK account to my US account and have it on automatic debit from
there. However, Barclay's charges me £20 per transfer, which
is a little steep. Does anybody know if there is a cheaper alternative
to make regular payments/transfers to the US? Western Union has
an online transfer service but it says it's only valid if you have
a U.S. issued Visa or Mastercard. I assume this rules out using
my Barclay's connect to make the payments.
Hamish
posted
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Royal Bank of Scotland has an 'economy' money transfer service -
it costs us £8 per month - but it takes 'up to 10 days' for
the transfer to go through.
Carol
posted
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The US Embassy site has a list of American banks with branches in
London. Maybe you could open a checking account in dollars at one
of them, and just send a check every month. I haven't checked -
no pun intended - into this to see if that's how it works. The address
is:
usembassy.org.uk/cons_web/acs/uk/bank.htm (I haven't put the full
link in, as the forum software tends to change it.)
James
posted
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Through work my wife and I are supposed to be able to split our
pay between US$ and Sterling to separate accounts. You can ask your
employer if they can do this for you and have each direct deposited
to the respective accounts. Otherwise, Natwest supposedly has a
special US Expat account with "no fees" to transfer money
between US and Sterling, but 2 caveats for Natwest: 1. I don't know
how you would set up the direct debit from Sallie Mae and 2. It's
been 5 weeks and countless calls and our account still isn't in
place.
Good luck (and if you end up taking the Natwest route let me know
how long it takes to set up the account, I'm still waiting for Telewest,
too... sorry I'm digressing).
Marianna
posted
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Damn the RBS! I've been transferring money through them and they've
never ever told me about the economy transfer thingy!
I've called the American banks around London and most of them are
for corporate accounts only. THere are a couple (citibank???) that
do personal accounts but you have to have a certain balance or you
get charged a montly fee.
That way you can write checks in Americna dollars, but you can't
wire money to the US account any cheaper. It must be something to
do with international laws... go figure.
I have contacted several american banks in the area, some only do
corporate accounts, others you have to have a sizeable balance.
But if you do it with them, you will still have to send a check
in US dollars every month, as a branch to branch transfer with the
US banks always costs a bit of money. I think it has something to
do w/ international laws. Who knows...
Susan
in Cornwall posted
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I bank online with Smile plc (the Co-operative Banks internet bank)
and they do a Tipanet transfer (that's what they call it) for £8.
It's straightforward and takes 4 or 5 days and arrives in the American
account in dollars.
Susan
James
posted
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Update on the Natwest account - it does not allow for "fee
free" transfers. Bummer. Maybe instead of standardizing on
the Euro, they should standardize on the US dollar? Think we can
start a petition? ;)
Diego
Moppett posted
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Thanks for all the replies. I think I'll try Smile or Natwest...sounds
like a much better deal than £20 at Barclays.
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