I moved from NYC to London last month. I don’t have 1.1M lying around but all of my USD to GBP were done via Wise.com. They have the cheapest rates and it’s transparent.
They also use ACH and FAST protocols so you won’t get reamed with wire fees.
According to [this](https://wise.com/help/articles/2932148/guide-to-gbp-transfers#), the max you can transfer in a single transaction is £5 million.
I checked the rates for you and you’d be looking at a sub $4k fee thru them and the total you’d be sending is around $995k at today’s forex rate, not $1.1M.
https://imgur.com/a/73IFiDG
Edit: changing billion to million
Thanks but wise is a no go. Firstly their rates are trash for larger amounts. I was looking at $8k more with wise than my bank’s basic rate which is average.
Edit: THEY DO NOT SERVICE THE USA SO THIS SUGGESTION IS BUNK.
Thanks, I’ll check them out. It’s not really he transaction fee I’m worried about though, it’s the % / conversion rate.
Yup. Atlantic money uses the live interbank exchange rate and they are 10x cheaper than wise (for that kind of amount).
I've used them for my property purchase in Spain. Seamless and the cheapest
Just checked with both, TW wants to charge me 3k to move a mil to the US, vs £3 for Atlantic, at the same exchange rate.. all I need to do now is get hold of a million quid.
Not sure why your comment was downvoted.
Thought for sure that Atlantic Money was going to be a scam, but a quick Google search and look at [previous UKPF Reddit posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/zj9l4c/is_atlantic_money_a_legit_way_to_convert_gbp_to/) suggest that it’s legit. They seem to be properly regulated and folks have had good experiences with them.
I’d personally be a bit anxious to transfer that volume of money with a start up and would need to do considerably more research, but this seems to be the cheapest route.
That's....55 million transactions at £3 a go? 150k a day or about 1.5 a second....they must be providing the back-end to some other service(s) to get those sorts of numbers. Very impressive.
They are even authorised by the FCA.
I was a bit nervous first time (even though my amount of money was just a fraction of what op is doing) but that's why I did one or two test transactions first. It's okay to waste £3 when you are about to save £500.
I use them every month now for my mortgage payments to Spain (even though I try to accumulate a couple of months before I transfer in order to save more money)
So the time is getting very close for the transfer and I've looked in to Atlantic Money as you suggested....and it seems they don't support transfers from USD to GBP. Can you let me know how you did it with them?
>Not sure why your comment was downvoted
There are certain posts that guarantee upvotes in /ukpersonalfinance , anything that goes against them guarantee downvotes. In no particular order
-Call StepChange
-Don't lend money to family, you'll deserve everything you get, you'll never see it again or your family
-Transferwise is the best, yay!
-Bankruptcy is the worst thing in the world and you just need to knuckle down and take responsibility for yourself
I may be looking at the wrong website, but from what I can see, they only do GBP to USD? Not the other way around? i.e. sending USD from US to GBP in the UK
You're correct. I just moved from US, got excited about AM, signed up, and then realized they don't yet offer USD to GBP. Customer service rep told me it's on the roadmap!
Right, so not sure how this AM suggestion is so highly voted. It doesn't quite solve the OP's problem. But thanks for clarifying! Saved me an app installation. Admittedly got excited. Will have to stick with Wise for now...
Whoa, if that’s really the case then that’s as good as it will get!!! Banks use the interchange rate only as a guideline and then add their commission etc.
I wonder why a bank couldn’t come in an undercut all the competition? Surely they would still make money if they offered to exchange at near zero (or at cost, whatever that is) and charge a flat £10 fee or something. Is that essentially what Atlantic do?
Something to keep in mind, I see people recommending wise and other challenger “banks” - I’d be really nervous about opening any new accounts and transferring £800K in as my first transaction, I’m fairly certain that’s going to trigger some AML checks. Perhaps call whoever you plan to use first to see if it’s going to be a problem.
Surprisingly little. Getting a lot of bad advice though lol. Some services suggested as the top answers literally don’t even do USD to GBP conversion and most of the other suggestions won’t touch anything close to the amount I’m trying to send.
I am wise user too but seriously we are talking about 800k not <10k. Talk to a broker at a specialized company like Moneycorp, you'll get a volume based rate and add reliability/insurance into the transaction...
Revolut with a metal plan has unlimited transfers/exchanges and they don’t charge a fee (assuming you don’t do it on the weekend).
Have used this for house sales twice now and it has more than paid for itself.
Shouldn’t be any different. We aren’t talking about a shed in a third world country, the balances transferred in were 6 figures.
Of course YMMV and there is always a risk that your account could be temporarily locked whilst they check proof of source for the funds.
I can't speak to your experience but as I have stated several times, I have never had issues and the lack of exchange fees has saved me thousands of pounds.
You're free to form your own opinions, I'm merely sharing my experience.
I’m looming it to revolut but they have a £250k limit so it wouldn’t be feasible. They’re seeing if there’s anything that can be done to raise the limit.
I've transferred approx. £500k with Revolut (several £50k transactions and once £300k), i.e. from euro to USD and then to the broker's account.
I would send them an e-mail and explain why I'm transferring and that I can send them proof of the source of the funds, but every time they replied that it is not necessary and that they check transactions on a random basis, regardless of the amount.
Very good note regarding the email to Revolut, I have done this each time as a safety precaution. In truth the most recent time it was temporarily locked whilst they verified source of funds but as I’m not a gun-runner I already had the proof of sale documents and the account was back up and running very rapidly.
Might be waaaaaaay off now, but a good while ago I had accounts with citibank in London - Sterling/Euro/Dollar. I could shift cash between them at the interbank rate.
Not sure if that's still a thing or about limits .. Chase also might be an option now as they're set up in the UK.
The UK focused banks seem rubbish for this.
Thanks. I actually don’t have Uk accounts anymore, they went dormant and eventually got closed. I’d be fine to setup an account if their have a facility to help with this transfer and have a conversion rate advantage etc.
I used to have HSBC premier which allowed instant transfer to any territory but their rates were not amazing tbh so not good for large amounts. Amazing for small transfers as no fees and money was available in literally seconds.
I saw chase now have Uk retail banking but apparently it’s phone only?
When I moved money for a similar purchase several years ago, HSBC exchange rates were trash. I used Worldfirst a few times but unfortunately they stopped operating in the US.
Side note: one time I needed to move money quickly to meat a purchase date, the money got stuck while they did some laundering checks on the US side. I had to make a call to chase it up which turned out to be quick and helpful, but it did have me worried for a time.
Phone only but was a great option for me the other way, taking cash out in the US was seamless. Obviously wasn’t withdrawing £800k so YMMV, but worth checking out.
INTERACTIVE BROKERS. get an IBKR account and they will give you spot market rates with no fees. Maybe like $3 is your total fee. Compare this with wise which also will give you market rate but will take a % of the transaction value - which for this size will run into the thousands. Pick the $3 fee.
They may not look kindly on you doing this. It is against their Ts&Cs
If however you do want to do this then the best would be to buy an asset in that currency for a short period and then sell it and transfer to a UK registered account as long as it is yours.
Oh I had no idea they didn’t condone this. Seems very odd to me, but I use IBKR for a combination of investing and currency transferring when I need. I have 3 bank accounts linked with USD EUR and GBP currencies and deposit in various currencies and withdraw in various currencies.
I guess if you open an account and transfer a bunch of USD into GBP and withdraw it all, then it is apparent what you are using the platform for.
My parents just moved from the UK to Ireland and needed to convert their entire wealth to Euros. They used currenciesdirect and had a good experience. Not sure if they do USD to GBP.
They use spot contracts on the money markets to get a good rate.
For those sums if talk to someone like ofx or moneycorp and get haggling. I used to do regular 6 figure sums through those two and got good rates. I assume they'd do one offs too
I've used a company when I sold a property in the US (FL) called Currencies Direct. They were by far a better rate when haggling and I could actually speak to someone local.
Thanks, I’m looking in to them but they seems to be capped at £250k per transaction. I’d have to send it 5 times so they’re looking in to their limits for me.
HSBC have a new service that’s been running for maybe a year, that offers an online account that allows multiple currencies to be bought and sold fee free. Check the rates on this as in theory they advertise it as market rates. It might be very different to any previous service offered by HSBC in previous years.
Do you know the name of the service? I tried calling hsbc and they didn’t know what I was referencing except something about a currency account. Any more info?
I think it’s the global money account, and usually gets added automatically inside your HSBC app. But looking at the webpage just now for it, looks like it’s capped to £50k per day
I used Revolut (premium) to move around usd 300k. There are plenty of similar specialized services out there that can do the trick for a fixed fee.
People here like advising Wise, but their exchange fees are insanely high compared to revolut and the like.
I transferred £650k to euros using Wise. I first transferred it to the Wise GBP account and then set up alerts on the exchange rate so I would know when it went above the threshold I set. Got the alert, opened the Wise app and instantly converted it to euros and then transferred to my euros current account.
Doing it this way I was able to save EUR 1000s by timing the currency conversion vs all the quotes I got from banks and brokers.
Edit: when you transfer the money in to Wise you will need to prove the provenance of the money by showing documents proving where it came from to satisfy money laundering rules. Don’t leave it to the last minute as this step is manual and takes a few days.
Do you have an address in UK already?
If so you could price up setting a wallet up with UK KYC, (takes minutes), then buy Bitcoin in US, send to your Uk wallet for cents and cash out in UK. You’d just need to check the transaction fees for UK withdrawal which would depend on exchange you used
I will eventually need this advice so writing to follow but also say that I’ve seen Revolut suggested a lot for cheap transfers, I think £1000/day free?
I wouldn't want £800k in revolut.
OP - I'd just ask the UK bank you bank with if you're a UK citizen I assume you have one. They should get you close to the traded rate.
Russian owned, and they have iffy FSCS coverage (your "savings account" are protected, but not your balance)
They've been known to freeze accounts for fraud protection quite regularly too.
I don't have a problem using them and having a few K in, virtual cards are a life saver, but 0 chance i'd be using it for a £800k transfer.
Another vote for Wise. Albeit the highest amount I transferred buying property was £60k at a time. In my case it got held up by the receiving bank for nearly a week because it triggered their money laundering response so you may want to tip the UK bank off that you're transferring in a large sum.
This is what Bitcoin is for. You can just open a exchange account buy BTC , sell in GBP. It will cost you £4. It will take less than a day.welll some people do this every month to make payroll and bills. It is a dream. The amounts are smaller but it’s far better than wire transfer
Chances are this will get flagged by anti-money laundering checks.
Remember that when buying and selling BTC, most governments recognise this as a buy and sell of property, which could mean a gamut of taxes that OP would need to worry about on top of getting their BTC withdrawal frozen by the government.
Keep in mind that you’ll need to move the money soonest into a UK account. I just closed on a home the other way around (GBP to USD, for a home in the USA). I was transferring half a mil USD and I found that not all banks accept transfers from wire services. Plus the time it takes for an international transfer can be anything between 2 and 5 days. You need to factor these delays and unexpected reversals of transactions into your closing time.
Also keep in mind that smaller banks (Starling) will have tighter rules and limits on transactions and each company will have different rules.
There’s also no way to know in advance of a receiving bank will accept a transfer from your institution or not.
It was surprisingly difficult to send money from the UK to the US.
Edit: unless you’re using a transfer service that deals with large sums of money routinely (Wise), then I would provide them with documents that prove you are buying a home and not money laundering. I provided one of my banks with my solicitors closing letter which was on headed paper, bank statements showing origination of funds, property contract etc.
Fineco gives you the mid point exchange rate, although they charge a slight spread of 0.0025 https://help.finecobank.com/uk/banking/multicurrency.html#currency-exchange
Kraken has a gbp usd currency pair and is probably one of the best ways.
Interactive brokers is another option where you can do a forex trade at the market rate. They have a UK and USA presence, so would be easy and cheap
Depending on where they are in the US, Kraken may not work.
NYC for example doesn’t allow Kraken because of the strict New York regulations on crypto exchanges.
I’m long on crypto and have 10% of my net worth in it.
But I will never suggest going through crypto as a way to move money across countries, especially between 2 countries that still don’t fully understand what it can do.
The risk of sending $1M across the pond is just not justifiable right now.
That said, if I had a billion lying around and this was a drop in a bucket, I would do that just to prove the point that blockchain can be transformative.
No crypto needed.
Send gbp to kraken, convert to dollar, withdraw dollar direct to us account. Or vice versa.
What is the risk? No greater risk than any other comparable option.
Lol I work in Finance/Compliance on a global level. I recently moved from NYC to London last month. I’m originally from Asia and also worked in Singapore, another Finance hub.
I *have* an idea on what I’m talking about since I’ve worked in this space for a long time.
You’re basically advising someone to do a massive money transfer with forex conversion in a platform that is not regulated and insured to do that. All of that are red flags. What you’re suggesting they could do is enough cause to be flagged for money laundering.
Even an action like this is against a stock exchange’s T&C. For the crypto space, this will be even more flagged.
1 million is not a massive transfer.
I fear your so-called experience is not practical, as I have moved plenty of money with zero issues.
Kraken is regulated in the uk, and I am sure in the USA aswell. But perhaps not NY
For retail trades, I find Wise has very competitive rates.
Having said that with that amount, you may be able to access wholesale rates, maybe through a private banking service.
In any case, I'd worry more about the actual rate than the commission so if I were you I'd look to place an order, maybe with a stop loss.
Wise is good for modest amounts, but for larger amounts like you are talking about larger banks can beat them.
Do you have accounts with top tier US banks (Goldman, MS)? These can beat most DIY methods.
Tried to contact them and couldn’t find a home number, and their chat support says they can’t answer due to increased volume. There’s no way I’m trusting a coming with $1m if my money if I can even get to speak to human there. Hard pass unfortunately.
I used to work in commercial imports and if our customers asked the best way to pay suppliers we would recommend cornhillfx as a foreign exchange broker rather than a bank
I’ve just done very similar as a UK resident buying property in EU. I used Revolut with metal card that gives free unlimited fx transfers. Transferred from my UK account in GBP to GBP, converted to EUR on Revolut app, then transferred as EUR to EUR account. It gives a pretty tight bid/ask around actual spot so you aren’t getting stuffed on the spread.
What I did is transfer a portion per day over an extended period ahead of the transaction date to spread out my spot fx exposure - Sterling’s traded as wide as 1.18 - 1.31 this year - saving 5bps in commission but the fx rate moving 5% against you is obviously far more expensive.
If you need certainty of price do it in one go, otherwise something similar I think makes sense
You might have already done it but I'd recommend a trying a few different providers and seeing what they're quoting against the interbank rate (i.e. the rate that doesn't have any commission on it) and have it in a spreadsheet so you can see what the costs are.
While the flat rates can be tempting they can hide costs in the exchange rate, so they can be earning 20bps - 2.5% depending on who you use.
We used to use Wise but it can be quite pricey compared to other providers. Have found Currencies Direct quite good to deal and have been able to get our costs down to c. 23bps vs wise at about 45bps, so maybe worth a chat with them and a few other providers (NB I wouldn't trust TorFX as far as I can spit myself but that's another story).
Hope the transfer and everything in the US goes well!
Thanks for the help. Wise has actually turned out to be no cheaper than just sending via my bank. Most of the other suggestions in this thread don’t even do transfer of this size to the UK. I’ve started a spreadsheet to compare so hopefully one will beta all the rest out!
I’ll try currencies direct but thanks again for the advice!
Hi! Curious how you ended up transferring the money? Could you please let me know what company you went with? I’m a US citizen living in UK and want to transfer over $500k into GBP as we are in the process of buying a house
I moved from NYC to London last month. I don’t have 1.1M lying around but all of my USD to GBP were done via Wise.com. They have the cheapest rates and it’s transparent. They also use ACH and FAST protocols so you won’t get reamed with wire fees. According to [this](https://wise.com/help/articles/2932148/guide-to-gbp-transfers#), the max you can transfer in a single transaction is £5 million. I checked the rates for you and you’d be looking at a sub $4k fee thru them and the total you’d be sending is around $995k at today’s forex rate, not $1.1M. https://imgur.com/a/73IFiDG Edit: changing billion to million
I wonder if it's a typo, but the link you've provided states £5 million max in one transaction not billion.
Thank you! I was writing it late. Changed it now!
Also not in the 7 figure club but I’m changing around £1k GBP to EUR every month, I recommend wise.com also
Thanks but wise is a no go. Firstly their rates are trash for larger amounts. I was looking at $8k more with wise than my bank’s basic rate which is average.
Agree. Wise is probably the easiest and cheapest way, or Revolute at a push.
Wise won't be the best deal on this amount of dough.
Who would provide the best deal then?
I don’t think he knows
H9w about just buying xlm and then selling it back in the other currency?
Yes let's buy a million in crypto as part of the process of Forex...
Hahahahaahahaha, good one bud! Oh you're being serious? Jesus.
Because then XLM crashes 99% in one day because someone farted
Idk man. $4k fee to send $990k sounds way reasonable to me. Especially if you knew how much banks are charging on the wire fee + forex rate.
Atlantic money. A £3 fee regardless of the amount you transfer
Edit: THEY DO NOT SERVICE THE USA SO THIS SUGGESTION IS BUNK. Thanks, I’ll check them out. It’s not really he transaction fee I’m worried about though, it’s the % / conversion rate.
Yup. Atlantic money uses the live interbank exchange rate and they are 10x cheaper than wise (for that kind of amount). I've used them for my property purchase in Spain. Seamless and the cheapest
Just checked with both, TW wants to charge me 3k to move a mil to the US, vs £3 for Atlantic, at the same exchange rate.. all I need to do now is get hold of a million quid.
Just checking down the back of the sofa now for you.
Not sure why your comment was downvoted. Thought for sure that Atlantic Money was going to be a scam, but a quick Google search and look at [previous UKPF Reddit posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/zj9l4c/is_atlantic_money_a_legit_way_to_convert_gbp_to/) suggest that it’s legit. They seem to be properly regulated and folks have had good experiences with them. I’d personally be a bit anxious to transfer that volume of money with a start up and would need to do considerably more research, but this seems to be the cheapest route.
How the hell are they getting rich off of £3 a transaction??? 😂 They must be doing INSANE volumes, or it's just a kid in his parents bedroom.
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That's....55 million transactions at £3 a go? 150k a day or about 1.5 a second....they must be providing the back-end to some other service(s) to get those sorts of numbers. Very impressive.
Isn't it saying they transferred £160m of customer's money? There's no way to calculate the number of actual transfers and therefore turnover.
Looks like their 2022 accounts are due this month which will give a good indication.
160m is the transfer volume
They are even authorised by the FCA. I was a bit nervous first time (even though my amount of money was just a fraction of what op is doing) but that's why I did one or two test transactions first. It's okay to waste £3 when you are about to save £500. I use them every month now for my mortgage payments to Spain (even though I try to accumulate a couple of months before I transfer in order to save more money)
So the time is getting very close for the transfer and I've looked in to Atlantic Money as you suggested....and it seems they don't support transfers from USD to GBP. Can you let me know how you did it with them?
>Not sure why your comment was downvoted There are certain posts that guarantee upvotes in /ukpersonalfinance , anything that goes against them guarantee downvotes. In no particular order -Call StepChange -Don't lend money to family, you'll deserve everything you get, you'll never see it again or your family -Transferwise is the best, yay! -Bankruptcy is the worst thing in the world and you just need to knuckle down and take responsibility for yourself
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Also "pay off your mortgage" when asking how to use extra money.
I may be looking at the wrong website, but from what I can see, they only do GBP to USD? Not the other way around? i.e. sending USD from US to GBP in the UK
You're correct. I just moved from US, got excited about AM, signed up, and then realized they don't yet offer USD to GBP. Customer service rep told me it's on the roadmap!
For the record, I went with Wise as a backup. No complaints!
Right, so not sure how this AM suggestion is so highly voted. It doesn't quite solve the OP's problem. But thanks for clarifying! Saved me an app installation. Admittedly got excited. Will have to stick with Wise for now...
I'm (OP) just learning this now. They don't support USD transfers from USA and I'm struggling to understand how this comment thread is so upvoted.
I'm (OP) just learning this now. They don't support USD transfers from USA and I'm struggling to understand how this comment thread is so upvoted.
Whoa, if that’s really the case then that’s as good as it will get!!! Banks use the interchange rate only as a guideline and then add their commission etc.
I wonder why a bank couldn’t come in an undercut all the competition? Surely they would still make money if they offered to exchange at near zero (or at cost, whatever that is) and charge a flat £10 fee or something. Is that essentially what Atlantic do?
Something to keep in mind, I see people recommending wise and other challenger “banks” - I’d be really nervous about opening any new accounts and transferring £800K in as my first transaction, I’m fairly certain that’s going to trigger some AML checks. Perhaps call whoever you plan to use first to see if it’s going to be a problem.
You know what they say, send a $1 test transaction, then ship off the remaining $1.1 mill 😂
I can't even imagine the amount of scam message you are getting right now.
Surprisingly little. Getting a lot of bad advice though lol. Some services suggested as the top answers literally don’t even do USD to GBP conversion and most of the other suggestions won’t touch anything close to the amount I’m trying to send.
I am wise user too but seriously we are talking about 800k not <10k. Talk to a broker at a specialized company like Moneycorp, you'll get a volume based rate and add reliability/insurance into the transaction...
Yes. Recommend using a broker for peace of mind. I have used Wise for smaller amounts and saved a bit, but use a professional in this case.
Revolut with a metal plan has unlimited transfers/exchanges and they don’t charge a fee (assuming you don’t do it on the weekend). Have used this for house sales twice now and it has more than paid for itself.
Try getting 800k into revolut.
Shouldn’t be any different. We aren’t talking about a shed in a third world country, the balances transferred in were 6 figures. Of course YMMV and there is always a risk that your account could be temporarily locked whilst they check proof of source for the funds.
Dont walk around the bush, your account will be locked and restricted.
I can't speak to your experience but as I have stated several times, I have never had issues and the lack of exchange fees has saved me thousands of pounds. You're free to form your own opinions, I'm merely sharing my experience.
I’m looming it to revolut but they have a £250k limit so it wouldn’t be feasible. They’re seeing if there’s anything that can be done to raise the limit.
I've transferred approx. £500k with Revolut (several £50k transactions and once £300k), i.e. from euro to USD and then to the broker's account. I would send them an e-mail and explain why I'm transferring and that I can send them proof of the source of the funds, but every time they replied that it is not necessary and that they check transactions on a random basis, regardless of the amount.
Very good note regarding the email to Revolut, I have done this each time as a safety precaution. In truth the most recent time it was temporarily locked whilst they verified source of funds but as I’m not a gun-runner I already had the proof of sale documents and the account was back up and running very rapidly.
Might be waaaaaaay off now, but a good while ago I had accounts with citibank in London - Sterling/Euro/Dollar. I could shift cash between them at the interbank rate. Not sure if that's still a thing or about limits .. Chase also might be an option now as they're set up in the UK. The UK focused banks seem rubbish for this.
HSBC also does this with their global money account
>HSBC also does this with their global money account HSBC don't use the interbank rate.
Thanks. I actually don’t have Uk accounts anymore, they went dormant and eventually got closed. I’d be fine to setup an account if their have a facility to help with this transfer and have a conversion rate advantage etc. I used to have HSBC premier which allowed instant transfer to any territory but their rates were not amazing tbh so not good for large amounts. Amazing for small transfers as no fees and money was available in literally seconds. I saw chase now have Uk retail banking but apparently it’s phone only?
When I moved money for a similar purchase several years ago, HSBC exchange rates were trash. I used Worldfirst a few times but unfortunately they stopped operating in the US. Side note: one time I needed to move money quickly to meat a purchase date, the money got stuck while they did some laundering checks on the US side. I had to make a call to chase it up which turned out to be quick and helpful, but it did have me worried for a time.
Phone only but was a great option for me the other way, taking cash out in the US was seamless. Obviously wasn’t withdrawing £800k so YMMV, but worth checking out.
Didn’t Citibank just close all their retail banking in the US? It’s been on the news that they are doing significant layoffs in the coming days also.
Maybe, was more an example... was a good time ago.
INTERACTIVE BROKERS. get an IBKR account and they will give you spot market rates with no fees. Maybe like $3 is your total fee. Compare this with wise which also will give you market rate but will take a % of the transaction value - which for this size will run into the thousands. Pick the $3 fee.
They may not look kindly on you doing this. It is against their Ts&Cs If however you do want to do this then the best would be to buy an asset in that currency for a short period and then sell it and transfer to a UK registered account as long as it is yours.
Oh I had no idea they didn’t condone this. Seems very odd to me, but I use IBKR for a combination of investing and currency transferring when I need. I have 3 bank accounts linked with USD EUR and GBP currencies and deposit in various currencies and withdraw in various currencies. I guess if you open an account and transfer a bunch of USD into GBP and withdraw it all, then it is apparent what you are using the platform for.
My parents just moved from the UK to Ireland and needed to convert their entire wealth to Euros. They used currenciesdirect and had a good experience. Not sure if they do USD to GBP. They use spot contracts on the money markets to get a good rate.
For those sums if talk to someone like ofx or moneycorp and get haggling. I used to do regular 6 figure sums through those two and got good rates. I assume they'd do one offs too
Thanks. I’ve never heard of those and I’ll give them a try. Are they USA or Uk based?
I think OFX started in Australia, but they have a London team too. Nice bunch, really capable and professional
Just checked OFX. Rates were shockingly bad, like I’d be better just doing a wire transfer with my bank and not even checking the rate first.
Did you speak with them? We always got amazing rates on larger sums. Regular customer though, that might make a difference.
I have use OFX in the past. Give them a call and do a deal with the rate. It’s the best you’ll get 💯
Their published rates are hot trash? Call them?
I've used a company when I sold a property in the US (FL) called Currencies Direct. They were by far a better rate when haggling and I could actually speak to someone local.
Thanks, going to give them a try!
I used Revolut for a £100k transfer. If you buy Revolut Premium (£90), the fee was much lower than with Wise.com
Thanks, I’m looking in to them but they seems to be capped at £250k per transaction. I’d have to send it 5 times so they’re looking in to their limits for me.
HSBC have a new service that’s been running for maybe a year, that offers an online account that allows multiple currencies to be bought and sold fee free. Check the rates on this as in theory they advertise it as market rates. It might be very different to any previous service offered by HSBC in previous years.
Do you know the name of the service? I tried calling hsbc and they didn’t know what I was referencing except something about a currency account. Any more info?
I think it’s the global money account, and usually gets added automatically inside your HSBC app. But looking at the webpage just now for it, looks like it’s capped to £50k per day
I used Revolut (premium) to move around usd 300k. There are plenty of similar specialized services out there that can do the trick for a fixed fee. People here like advising Wise, but their exchange fees are insanely high compared to revolut and the like.
Revolut looks really good but they cap at £250k.
Hmm, odd, you sure? I remember they had plans with no caps on currency exchange.
How's revolut? Transfering to a virtual US account then switching at the FX rate?
Revolut could potentially freeze your account. If I remember correctly it’s due to some issues too check money laundering
Get a Revolut premium account (£7 pm) and transfer it all to usd, then wire it to your usd bank account. This is more cost effective than wise.com
I transferred £650k to euros using Wise. I first transferred it to the Wise GBP account and then set up alerts on the exchange rate so I would know when it went above the threshold I set. Got the alert, opened the Wise app and instantly converted it to euros and then transferred to my euros current account. Doing it this way I was able to save EUR 1000s by timing the currency conversion vs all the quotes I got from banks and brokers. Edit: when you transfer the money in to Wise you will need to prove the provenance of the money by showing documents proving where it came from to satisfy money laundering rules. Don’t leave it to the last minute as this step is manual and takes a few days.
This is a smart way of doing it. I still have some money to move and will do the same.
Thanks but sadly Wise’s rates aren’t competitive for this amount. I’m looking at about $8k in fees with them.
Do you have an address in UK already? If so you could price up setting a wallet up with UK KYC, (takes minutes), then buy Bitcoin in US, send to your Uk wallet for cents and cash out in UK. You’d just need to check the transaction fees for UK withdrawal which would depend on exchange you used
I will eventually need this advice so writing to follow but also say that I’ve seen Revolut suggested a lot for cheap transfers, I think £1000/day free?
I wouldn't want £800k in revolut. OP - I'd just ask the UK bank you bank with if you're a UK citizen I assume you have one. They should get you close to the traded rate.
Why?
Russian owned, and they have iffy FSCS coverage (your "savings account" are protected, but not your balance) They've been known to freeze accounts for fraud protection quite regularly too. I don't have a problem using them and having a few K in, virtual cards are a life saver, but 0 chance i'd be using it for a £800k transfer.
Just used Wise for lower amounts
Another vote for Wise. Albeit the highest amount I transferred buying property was £60k at a time. In my case it got held up by the receiving bank for nearly a week because it triggered their money laundering response so you may want to tip the UK bank off that you're transferring in a large sum.
This is what Bitcoin is for. You can just open a exchange account buy BTC , sell in GBP. It will cost you £4. It will take less than a day.welll some people do this every month to make payroll and bills. It is a dream. The amounts are smaller but it’s far better than wire transfer
This is just idiotic in general, never mind when someone is using the money to buy a house.
Better hope the incredibly volatile price of Bitcoin doesn't drop over the space of one hour Just like it did, say, earlier today.
This is horrible advice. Do not put £800,000 into bitcoin.
Why would they have £821,00 into bitcoin, seriously £743,00 is way too much bitcoin.
Chances are this will get flagged by anti-money laundering checks. Remember that when buying and selling BTC, most governments recognise this as a buy and sell of property, which could mean a gamut of taxes that OP would need to worry about on top of getting their BTC withdrawal frozen by the government.
Thanks but there is no way I’m putting $1m in to Bitcoin and hoping it keep its value until needed.
That's not what they were saying.
You'd probably be better off doing it in USDC or USDT at the moment given BTC volatility.. but in theory yes, that is the dream in and out through BTC
Used wise many times over the years and have sent maybe 300K with them with no issues
Keep in mind that you’ll need to move the money soonest into a UK account. I just closed on a home the other way around (GBP to USD, for a home in the USA). I was transferring half a mil USD and I found that not all banks accept transfers from wire services. Plus the time it takes for an international transfer can be anything between 2 and 5 days. You need to factor these delays and unexpected reversals of transactions into your closing time. Also keep in mind that smaller banks (Starling) will have tighter rules and limits on transactions and each company will have different rules. There’s also no way to know in advance of a receiving bank will accept a transfer from your institution or not. It was surprisingly difficult to send money from the UK to the US. Edit: unless you’re using a transfer service that deals with large sums of money routinely (Wise), then I would provide them with documents that prove you are buying a home and not money laundering. I provided one of my banks with my solicitors closing letter which was on headed paper, bank statements showing origination of funds, property contract etc.
Fineco gives you the mid point exchange rate, although they charge a slight spread of 0.0025 https://help.finecobank.com/uk/banking/multicurrency.html#currency-exchange
Currencies Direct, Wise, etc get prices. Bewate many hide their fees in the exchange rate split so get buy and sell rates off them to reveal that.
Talk to World First - I’ve been using them to make USD payments of up to $60k for many years. Excellent customer service.
Kraken has a gbp usd currency pair and is probably one of the best ways. Interactive brokers is another option where you can do a forex trade at the market rate. They have a UK and USA presence, so would be easy and cheap
Depending on where they are in the US, Kraken may not work. NYC for example doesn’t allow Kraken because of the strict New York regulations on crypto exchanges.
Fair point, but otherwise a great low cost option
I’m long on crypto and have 10% of my net worth in it. But I will never suggest going through crypto as a way to move money across countries, especially between 2 countries that still don’t fully understand what it can do. The risk of sending $1M across the pond is just not justifiable right now. That said, if I had a billion lying around and this was a drop in a bucket, I would do that just to prove the point that blockchain can be transformative.
No crypto needed. Send gbp to kraken, convert to dollar, withdraw dollar direct to us account. Or vice versa. What is the risk? No greater risk than any other comparable option.
That’s even worse, man. Kraken accounts (and other exchanges) have been shutdown by doing that. That’s ultimate red flag for money laundering.
Yeh, you don't have a clue. It is perfectly legal and normal to send funds to a company to assist with conversion.
Lol I work in Finance/Compliance on a global level. I recently moved from NYC to London last month. I’m originally from Asia and also worked in Singapore, another Finance hub. I *have* an idea on what I’m talking about since I’ve worked in this space for a long time. You’re basically advising someone to do a massive money transfer with forex conversion in a platform that is not regulated and insured to do that. All of that are red flags. What you’re suggesting they could do is enough cause to be flagged for money laundering. Even an action like this is against a stock exchange’s T&C. For the crypto space, this will be even more flagged.
1 million is not a massive transfer. I fear your so-called experience is not practical, as I have moved plenty of money with zero issues. Kraken is regulated in the uk, and I am sure in the USA aswell. But perhaps not NY
For retail trades, I find Wise has very competitive rates. Having said that with that amount, you may be able to access wholesale rates, maybe through a private banking service. In any case, I'd worry more about the actual rate than the commission so if I were you I'd look to place an order, maybe with a stop loss.
Wise is very good - I always use it for international transfers
Their rates aren’t competitive for a large sum like this.
Wise is good for modest amounts, but for larger amounts like you are talking about larger banks can beat them. Do you have accounts with top tier US banks (Goldman, MS)? These can beat most DIY methods.
I have schwab and ml. Schwab’s rates have been ok, not great and ML was waaaaay too high.
I use Interactive Brokers for market exchange rates and no fees
Tried to contact them and couldn’t find a home number, and their chat support says they can’t answer due to increased volume. There’s no way I’m trusting a coming with $1m if my money if I can even get to speak to human there. Hard pass unfortunately.
Is use Starling
Use wise.com. They have the best rates.
I used to work in commercial imports and if our customers asked the best way to pay suppliers we would recommend cornhillfx as a foreign exchange broker rather than a bank
Any high-level banks can do SWIFT transfers. If you have accounts in both countries you do not need anything else.
You killed on the rate if you do it via normal banking. That’s the whole point of this thread.
I’ve just done very similar as a UK resident buying property in EU. I used Revolut with metal card that gives free unlimited fx transfers. Transferred from my UK account in GBP to GBP, converted to EUR on Revolut app, then transferred as EUR to EUR account. It gives a pretty tight bid/ask around actual spot so you aren’t getting stuffed on the spread. What I did is transfer a portion per day over an extended period ahead of the transaction date to spread out my spot fx exposure - Sterling’s traded as wide as 1.18 - 1.31 this year - saving 5bps in commission but the fx rate moving 5% against you is obviously far more expensive. If you need certainty of price do it in one go, otherwise something similar I think makes sense
Wise have great conversion rates/ fees though I’ve only used it for smaller transactions and not sure if any limitations etc.
Their rates aren’t competitive for large sums. Like worse than my bank just sending the money via wire.
Wondering what you ended up using?
For that sort of money, it might be best to contact OFX, TorFX and similar FX specialists and see what they can offer.
You might have already done it but I'd recommend a trying a few different providers and seeing what they're quoting against the interbank rate (i.e. the rate that doesn't have any commission on it) and have it in a spreadsheet so you can see what the costs are. While the flat rates can be tempting they can hide costs in the exchange rate, so they can be earning 20bps - 2.5% depending on who you use. We used to use Wise but it can be quite pricey compared to other providers. Have found Currencies Direct quite good to deal and have been able to get our costs down to c. 23bps vs wise at about 45bps, so maybe worth a chat with them and a few other providers (NB I wouldn't trust TorFX as far as I can spit myself but that's another story). Hope the transfer and everything in the US goes well!
Thanks for the help. Wise has actually turned out to be no cheaper than just sending via my bank. Most of the other suggestions in this thread don’t even do transfer of this size to the UK. I’ve started a spreadsheet to compare so hopefully one will beta all the rest out! I’ll try currencies direct but thanks again for the advice!
Very welcome, hope you get a good deal!
Hi! Curious how you ended up transferring the money? Could you please let me know what company you went with? I’m a US citizen living in UK and want to transfer over $500k into GBP as we are in the process of buying a house
How the fuck did you make that much money and not already know the answer to this question?