Yes I would suggest you use either of these 2 companies

https://www.currenciesdirect.com/

http://www.hifx.co.uk/

With the second one you will not pay any fees at all but with the first one if you send over less than £2000 you will have to pay also whuch ever you go for DON'T go for the first offer they make you haggle it pays in the end.

I have used both a never had any trouble at all.

Thanks very much for that Hifx, seems to be the one for me.
Any other tips you can share?

Thanks again.

Only 1 extra that I can think of at the moment and that is if you Spanish bank make a charge for allowing you to transfer money into you account from an English bank just tell HFX and the will fully refund you because as it says in there adds YOU PAY NOT CHARGES.

Good luck and hope it all goes well.

I am sure I have read on hifx website that charges will not be refunded if the funds being sent are in a different currency than the destination bank account? I took this to mean that if I wish to send sterling to a euro account, that I would still incur charges. Am I reading the website wrong?

Not sure about that part but can't see why you would want to send sterling to a euro bank account but I am sure you have your reasons.

Because if you live in UK, and wish to top up your spanish account, one would presume you have sterling to do this with! And spain works in euros?? So somewhere along the line you will be changing sterling to euros.

Your answer, a1gjv, seemed a little abrupt

Sorry if my answer seemed a little abrupt it was not intended that way.

What you would do is contact HIFIX and ask them to give you a rate to change say £6000 into € and then transfer it direct to you account in Spain I do this all the time without any costs infact I have by UK pension sent from my UK bank via HIFIX who convert it into Euros and the send it direct to my account here in Spain without ant charge.

Ah I see now Thanks for the explanation

Even if you did a direct transfer from your UK bank, you would exchange GBP's for euro's here and then send the euros over to Spain.

The exchange rate you get (as well as any fees) can really make a difference so when asking for a quote get an 'all inclisive figure' so that you can compare properly.

Don't know whether this helps, but when we want to send funds out to our Portuguese bank account we use the Post Office and the Girobank system. Our Portuguese bank supplied us with the paying-in slips. We can pay in up to £10,000 and there is no charge either here or in Portugal, and the exchange rate is the one out there, which is always a bit better than the one here. We've always taken the cash to the Post Office and that's no problem, but not sure whether it can be done by cheque.

It may be that your Spanish bank has a similar arrangement with Girobank - it's certainly worth checking.

If you are a Halifax customer in the UK and Spain transfers between the two are free, the UK will convert into Euro's

Thank you to all, for the advice. This forum is great for the likes of me who are new to buying abroad. It will certainly save me money. Thanks again.

we used HFX when we bought and they keep the rate up for you too.we use our normal bank account now,but for big money you want the best rate

Can I just add a comment on sending money to not only Spain but almost any country via most banks as against currency houses like HIFIX and Currencies Direct you can loose a lot of money due to the exchange rate at the time. Lets take the following as a example for say transferring £10,000 into a Spanish bank.

1) Lloyd's current tourist rate is €1.40 = £1 therefore for your £10,000 you would get €14,000 minus any service charge that Lloyd's deem to charge at the time which can be anything from £40 to £200

2) Currencies Direct excharge rate is €1.47 = £1 now if you wanted to exchange the same amount of UK pounds i.e. £10000 they would most likely offer you a rate of €1.455 but don't take that first offer haggle and try and get it a little higher, therefore you would get €14,500 and NO service charge therefore you have just made €500 for the sake of just one phone call.

The exchange rates I have quotes are for today 04/04/2007 also with the currency houses the larger the sum you exchange with the the closer to the interbank rate you will get therefore if you were going to exchange 1 million pounds today with Currencies Direct they would more that likely offer you a rate of 1.46 or even 1.469, but with the bank your would only get the tourist rate that is current at the time, believe me I have lost money doing it through a bank when I first bought my house out here by over £2,500 and at the time I moved £2,500 in Euros would go a long way out here.

Just to add to the discussion here is my experience and opions for transferring within the EU.

If you ring your bank and are transferring more than about £10k they should offer to get you rate for that amount. They will ring their FX desk and get a quote that will be much closer to the interbank rate than the tourist rate. Depends on the bank as to what amount gets you this service and how good their rate is.

If you use your bank you usually have 2 options for transfer, TIPANET or SWIFT. TIPANET is the cheapest but only goes up to a value of 50,000 euros, depends on the bank but anything from £8 upwards. This will transfer Euros so there shouldn't be a receiving charge at the other end but you should check. TIPANET also takes upto 8 working days. Swift is more expensive £35+ and is quicker.

Currency brokers will adjust their rate to take account of the transfer fees . I've used my bank and HIFX, in one case my bank was better, in the other HIFX were fractionally better. Also, never take a currency brokers first offer of a rate, HIFX always improved on their rate when I asked.

So, if transferring more than £10k your bank should offer to get a proper rate from their FX desk, if they don't offer ask!

Hope that helps...

I've found that when transferring small amounts (3000€) there hasn't been much between my own Bank and the currency houses.

However my bank is much quicker because I don't have to factor in a transfer to the Currency house before the money can be sent to Spain.